Mesmeric Moon

I have been fascinated by the night sky since I was a child.
I remember lying down in the cool grass, holding hands with my girlfriend, and staring up at the stars, late into the night.
Good times.

Now that I am a grown up Nature Photographer, I try to capture the night sky on camera, in order to share the experience with others.
There is one problem, though.
It is extremely hard to take exceptional moon photographs.
I have tried many different ways to bring out the detail of the terrain on the moon surface.

The particular phase of the moon, local weather and atmospheric conditions, camera steadiness and shutter settings greatly affect the resulting photographs.
I have found that it is best to take many photographs at different settings and hope that one of two of them turn out really great.

This is one of my better moon photographs.
It is a shot of the Waning Gibbous Moon, showing decent detail of the "Sea of Crisis" near the top, with some cool craters on the right side of the moon.