E-PL5 kit lense, focussing to infinity

[prophet]

I was trying to shoot some star photos tonight; a problem I ran into was focussing the kit lense to inifinity. I set the camera up so I can manually overwrite the autofocus, and I know that turning the lense ring counter-clockwise should focus further away. Still, my images turned out unsharp.
How can I tell when I am focussing to infinity with the kit lense?

 

[ninad]

I don't think there is a way of telling if you are focusing to infinity other than actually looking at the LCD. The trick I use to focus on stars is to set the camera to manual focus mode, have focus assist on and then pick one of the brightest objects in the sky, focus on it and then move to the area which I want to capture.

 

[prophet]

I tried the focus assist, but my problem is that when pointing the camera at the night sky, I don't see anything on the display, it's just black. Even when the focus assist zooms in, still only black.
Autofocus also does not work, images are still blurry.

Any other advice how I can do this?

 

[Growltiger]

Isn't there anything in the distance that the camera can see? A mountain? A city?