Discussion: less exposure

The moon is so bright you can usually handhold the camera and still get really good shots, since the exposure is often 1/500 or faster, even with long lenses. I'm pretty sure this and this were both without a tripod (and both during the day, the second was just fast enough that the blue sky didn't expose at all). Also, fewer clouds will obviously give you sharper deatils and a better focus.

You still need a remote shutter though, just because they're so fun to play with. In trying to google the one I have, I couldn't find it, but it looks exactly like this except it says Opteron instead of Shoot on the top of it. So I don't know if thats a crappy knockoff, or they just changed brands. I think mine was a lot more expensive though. But it does all sorts of awesome timing things like time delays and interval shots so you can make cool time lapse videos and whatnot.

I scored one of these, and it's awesome. cheap, slightly flaky, but great. RF, even, so you don't need line of sight like the similarly cheap and awesome IR remotes. Don't know what your options are if you're rockin' Canons, though.

I'm trying to remember if it's got a Bulb mode for loooooong exposures. If it doesn't, that's the annoying part. If it does, I'm thinking of another remote. So, yeah. Moving on.

I have an IR remote that works for several brands of cameras that are properly equipped (I use it with Pentax cameras). Dirt cheap on ebay.

There is the Sunny 16 Rule for exposures on sunny days: Use f/16 and a shutter speed of 1 over the ISO rating of your film. So for ISO 100 film you could underexpose a bit using 1/125 for slide film, or overexpose a bit with 1/60 for negative. (And then bracket to make sure). And obviously, any equivalent exposure works---you can go down a stop in aperture and up a stop in shutter speed, for example.)

I have read that the Sunny 16 rule applies to taking photos of the moon---that the moon is essentially in direct sunlight at approximately the same distance from the sun as any other daylight photo on a sunny day. My gut says to start here and overexpose a stop or two.

Looking at the original pic, it seems you were shooting through thin cloud cover, is that true, or is it an artifact? If so, I think your results were pretty darn good, and on a clear night, with a bit of exposure bracketing, you should get excellent pictures.