Kate,
I am not fully understanding what you want to create, but if you want the scenery to be lit up by the moon and stars you may run into some obstacles, just due to the limitations of your camera. High ISO, possibly infinity focus, a longer shutter speed. Most of those things are limited in P&S cameras, but some do have the capabilities to do it.

I looked at your exif data and I could not tell what model you are using other than it is a Nikon. It actually says Nikon E800, but I think that is a microscope. You will need manual control over your camera, but some of the newer model come with a scene mode called nighttime(or whatever that brand calls it). Since I am not really sure what you are going for if you can link an example I could help you more.
Zitro

Beautiful quilts, excellent craftmanship.

Can't help with the night pictures though, sorry.

Valerie

Zitro, the quilt photos were taken with a Nikon Coolpix 2.1. Now I'm using a Canon Powershot A85 4.0. It does have a nighttime setting, but I don't want to light up the scenery. I want to leave that in silhouette while capturing the color of the sky and some stars. I thought of using the nighttime setting and putting my finger over the flash but there must be a better way to do this! Plus, it's hard to hold the camera steady that way.

And what's exif data and how can you see it???

Thanks for your help!
Kate

You need a tripod, and the camera has to have the ability to turn the flash off, and have a long shutter opening....starting at, say, 1 second, going up, as you experiment to see how long the shutter needs to be open.
JoanMN

Thanks JoanMN! I'll try it tonight if the sky is fairly clear.

Ok, Kate there are several thing that play into this, but they all concern light and the amount of light that enters the sensor. Fortunately your camera allows for full manual operations. These are very basic expinations, but they should help you, If I dont expand on an area too much it is because there is a lot involved in it.

You have these selections on you circular dial on the top of the camera

***Tv - Shutter Priority, this allow you to control the amount of time that shutter is open. It will adjust the Aperture accordingly to have the best Exposure Value (EV)

***Av - Aperture, ultimately it controls the Depth of Focus(DoF) for the camera. There are blades inside the lens. The lower the number the more open the blades are, shallow depth of focus. Higher the number the more closed they are, longer depth of focus.
----F/2.8-----
{{!gwi}}

----F/16----
{{!gwi}}

***M - Manual, you control shutter speed and aperture at the same time.

***ISO -pg84 -this is considered the speed of the film, back in the day of course. now it is the sensitivity of light that the sensor allows. The higher the ISO the more sensitive to light it will be. However, the higher the ISO the more noise you have in the picture. P&S are notorious for this.

***Turn off the flash - it on pg42 of your manual. There is a large round button on the back of the camera and it has four ways you can push it. Push the top area will adjust the flash. Push it until you see a lightening bolt with a circle and a line through it, like the 'no smoking' signs.

My Suggestion:
1)Put camera on Tv.
--adjust to 1"
2)Turn off the flash
3)Put on ISO200
4)Change the drive to to 2 second timer, this way the camera shake wont effect the picture when you hit the shutter release.

This should do the trick, play with the ISO and the sutter speeds to until you have you desired affect. If you have some noise in your picture, dont worry I can help you out that with wome noise reduction software. We'll touch on that later though

Thanks! Cloudy tonight (and too many mojitos with the neighbors...) so I haven't had a chance to try it yet but as soon as I do I'll be back for more info. You guys are awesome!