Photographing Stars?

Hello all. I am currently in Helen, GA for a weekend getaway. Tonight the stars were so pretty and I desperately wanted to capture the beauty. So I unpacked my tripod and set up my Nikon D3300 to take a few shots of the night sky. I was nowhere around the city, and there were no bright lights messing with the view--not even the moon. I tried to manually focus with my 35mm lens and got nothing. The live view screen remained black. I tried again and action to no avail. No matter what I did, all that appeared was a black screen, and it was the same when I did a test shot. And yes, the lens cap was off. I have tried googling for some info on this, but all that really comes up is to make sure your focus ring is at infinity and you are in manual focus and no other light source is present. I did all of this and had no luck. None. Could someone with much more experience than this poor soul who loves to capture the world as she sees it please help said poor soul out? Is there something I am just missing? Thank you!

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