Taking a shot of the moon

Yesterday a colleague called me because he wanted to take shot of the moon in this clear night. I thought no problem and started giving him tips:

• use aperture priority with a small aperture
• put the ISO up to the max
• use a tripod
• take a self-timer-shot not to introduce vibrancy
• keep your view-glass dark

and so on...

He is new to DSLR photography and therefore his had exploded because of the mass information. I told him that i will take the photo for and show him all the relevant things next day in the office.
So I headed out in the garden to take the shot and walk back in my house but the result was this:

f 5.6; 1/4 sec; ISO 1600

My first impression was - This is not what i would expect! I made a few shots that were even worse! I changed the aperture to 27 - and of course the shutter was open longer. I did another few shots changing everything possible on my 450D and the only result I got was this spooky kind of moon with violet space ships - of course it is only a lens flare :)

f 27; 3 sec; ISO 1600

I called my colleague and told him, that I don't believe, the camera is not made for this shots but I will keep a look on this topic. But standing there behind my tripod looking up to the moon I thought about the basics I've learned in D-Town TV. Suddenly it made boom like a bulp flashing over my head. My problem is a shutter that is too long open. The moon aka "the sun of the night" is to bright! I changed my camera to M(anual) mode and tried a shutter speed of 1/45 of a second with aperture 27 and surprisingly i got my first shot with textures of the moon. Playing around with the shutter speed I found that 1/350 of a second is the best...

f 27; 1/350sec, ISO1600

So i learned for myself that theory is good but go out and shoot the get the results you want!

cheers.cvg