It's cloudy as fuck here, I hope it clears up.

Lol raven was that hand held?

Exif dataCamera Pentax K20D
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1500)
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 200 mm
ISO Speed 3200
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire
Orientation Horizontal (normal)
X-Resolution 72 dpi
Y-Resolution 72 dpi
Software Paint Shop Pro Photo 12.50
Date and Time (Modified) 2010:12:20 21:22:01
YCbCr Positioning Co-sited
Exposure Program Program AE
Date and Time (Original) 2010:12:20 20:53:37
Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:12:20 20:53:37
Metering Mode Spot
Color Space sRGB
Sensing Method One-chip color area
Custom Rendered Normal
Exposure Mode Auto
White Balance Auto
Focal Length In35mm Format 300 mm
Scene Capture Type Standard
Contrast Normal
Saturation Normal
Sharpness Normal
Subject Distance Range Distant
Compression JPEG (old-style)
Viewing Conditions Illuminant Type D50
Measurement Observer CIE 1931
Measurement Flare 0%
Measurement Illuminant Unknown (0)

Exif dataCamera Pentax K20D
Exposure 1/3000 sec
Aperture f/13.0
Focal Length 200 mm
ISO Speed 3200
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire
Orientation Horizontal (normal)
X-Resolution 72 dpi
Y-Resolution 72 dpi
Software Paint Shop Pro Photo 12.50
Date and Time (Modified) 2010:12:21 04:20:54
YCbCr Positioning Co-sited
Exposure Program Program AE
Date and Time (Original) 2010:12:20 20:50:00
Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:12:20 20:50:00
Metering Mode Spot
Color Space sRGB
Sensing Method One-chip color area
Custom Rendered Custom
Exposure Mode Auto
White Balance Auto
Focal Length In35mm Format 300 mm
Scene Capture Type Standard
Contrast Normal
Saturation Low
Sharpness Normal
Subject Distance Range Distant
Compression JPEG (old-style)
Viewing Conditions Illuminant Type D50
Measurement Observer CIE 1931
Measurement Flare 0%
Measurement Illuminant Unknown (0)

Maybe you guys can critique what I did wrong here. Thanks.

Nothing is really wrong with the images, but your moon is slightly underexposed and you could have suppressed some high ISO noise (graininess when converted to b&w). And at an effective fov of 300mm, you probably had to crop pretty heavily, but nothing you can do about that without buying more gear, so we'll just ignore that issue.

You ran up the ISO as though you were hand holding (and at that high shutter speed, you could have hand held easily). For tripod work on an object like the moon that can be considered still for 10-20 seconds at a time, keep the ISO down to the native level (100-200 depending on the camera) and let the exposure go long. What you really want to avoid is 1/4 or 1/2 second exposures - they're just long enough to get the camera shaking from mirror slap but not long enough for the body and the tripod to dampen them out (mirror up isn't always available on every camera), which is why I like to push tripod shots out to 5 seconds or more. That said, that must have been a bright ass moon since you'd have still been at 1/50th at f/11 at 100 ISO and even at f/22 you'd have still been around 1/10th of a second, which is all kinds of wrong. And increasing the exposure by a half stop or so to brighten the moon would have only brought you to 1/15th, which is not much better (or 1/75th at f/11). It ideally called for a neutral density filter. But assuming you don't have one, and for most people's purposes it's only really a "blurred water" filter so why would you, the best compromise would have been to drag the shutter speed and ISO down to just faster than what would give you mirror slap and tripod vibration issues.

So let's say 1/125th of a second. Open up the lens a halfish stop to f/6.3 (or 6.7 depending on the lens) since that's still right in most lenses sweet spot and will brighten the shot. All this would bring the sensor speed down to 200 ISO and would have given you the highest possible IQ with the gear you've got. But remember, even with a technically perfect exposure, you're still at the mercy of all that atmosphere above you which will still try to distort your moon shot (which is one reason they like to build observatories on top of mountains).

CN: shot looks fine, just lighten the moon a bit in ps.

That said, that must have been a bright ass moon since you'd have still been at 1/50th at f/11 at 100 ISO and even at f/22 you'd have still been around 1/10th of a second, which is all kinds of wrong. And increasing the exposure by a half stop or so to brighten the moon would have only brought you to 1/15th, which is not much better (or 1/75th at f/11).

Speaking of all kinds of wrong, my math. Brightening up by a half stop in that example would give you 1/5th or 1/30th of second, not 1/15th or 1/75th.

OH, and I forgot to give you props on using spot metering on the moon rather than matrix. That's the best way to keep the moon from blowing out into a featureless white circle. The reason I said to lighten up a half stop is that the sensor picking up the moon's white-ish surface will actually try to make it a middle gray (between 13 and 18% gray depending on the manufacturer), so you have to lighten it a little to keep it white-ish without going so far as to lose the details.

Speaking of all kinds of wrong, my math. Brightening up by a half stop in that example would give you 1/5th or 1/30th of second, not 1/15th or 1/75th.

This unfortunately is alien to me, I guess I should take a class or two in order to learn this stuff.

There is a camera shop in Austin that does classes, a friend who is an actual photographer is pushing me to take the classes there instead of the local community college. I will do that and then decide at that point if I want to do the College thing.

ya know, that's ok. calculating stops of light takes a couple tries, verifying with someone who knows.
there are two things you have to get used to when calculating in regards to shutter speed:
halves
doubles.

http://www.photonhead.com/beginners/stops.php

check that out.

say you have something properly exposed at 1/100th shutter speed, but your aperture is too tight, say f/8, and you want to dofsturbate out a bit and drop that shit all the way to 2.8. well, you can change your shutter speed and/or iso to get the same exposure using different settings.

start with:
f/8
1/100th
iso400

trying to get f/2.8
???
???

first we have to figure out how many stops there are between f/8 and 2.8.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number

bam!

reading through there we figure out that we need to adjust 3 full stops, since f/8 is 3 stops darker than f/2.8

I'll just tell you that iso stops are halves and doubles, for ease of use here. Most cameras are iso200 natively, meaning the least noise you'll get on your pix is at iso200. this changes for some, but let's just assume this as true here.

ok, so let's start by dropping our iso from 400 to 200. now we have

f/2.8
???
iso200

still 2 stops to go. since our subject is frozen at 1/100th, going faster isn't a big deal, right?
-right.

soooo, if we still need 2 stops, let's go up incrementally. 1/100th to start, 1 stop faster is 1/200th, and one stop faster is 1/400th. there are your two stops.

f/2.8
1/400th
iso200

if all else fails, overexpose it a little. that never hurts.

LONG winded, but it helps to know where you can adapt to get the shot you want when you're looking at an entirely incorrect shutter/aperture/iso and you need to fix it asap

Wow, I never realized that there is math involved, that picture taking is even that complicated. lol

"Picture taking," is not complicated. Photography, is.

Nate