How do I make an object visible through a layer?

Fairly self explanatory, I'm using the Destination Out blending effect for lighting on a black, non-transparent 'light layer', is there any way to get a star, or night sky object to appear through this light layer?(ie. ignoring the darkening effects of the black overlay)

Make a separate layer for the stars on top of the light layer and turn visibility on/off.

It would then overlap the ground and active layers that are overlain already by the light layer. I've also tried modifying the layer opacity and using a darkness effects on specific layers, but I am unsure how to get the lighting effects to look properly without the destination out trick.

I think the additive effect may solve my issue, I'll check.

You just want to make some stars visible or? If you make the star layer transparent and put the stars as a tiled background then i don't see a problem because it's over your other stuff..

Not just stars no, any celestial object really(sun, moon, whatever).

It being over my other layers is the problem, though, because those layers include the active objects layer and the ground layer, which need to be darkened by the light layers' black overlay but still sit in front of the sky layer(ie no stars in front of trees, players et cetera).

You need the effects of the light layer really on everything? If you want a effect like night and day, maybe it's better (also performance wise) to change the images of your background graphics. Make one image with darker shades for night, and the same image with bright shades for day.

With all due respect, if you don't have an answer just pipe down and let someone else give it a try. As we've now fully digressed from the original topic. I'm not sold on the idea of using destination out for lighting effects, if there are other avenues for lighting I'll learn how to use them gladly. But I seriously doubt that I have the resources to produce night and day cycle animations for every object in game, that's just unreasonable.

Is it really better performance-wise to quadruple the animation count for hundreds of objects as opposed to just messing around with layer effects?