Originally posted by JulioM75: Yes it was low in the sky, it was around 7pm, i shot handheld, did not have my tripod with me that would it help with the shot I went with f/8 to get a little bit more sharpness, took different shots and this one was the better one, thank you for the tips, i will look into the looney 11 rule.
I went and looked up that lens and stopping down to f/8 is probably where I would have shot that lens for the first time out given that on the long end wide open it is a f/5.6. When doing astro you don't stop down for depth of field but to correct various aberrations. Since you mentioned that this was hand held I give you credit as that is actually surprisingly sharp you were probably very close on the focus (or it got papered over by being at f/8). Since the moon was low in the sky it lost a lot of light so wait until it is higher in the sky next time for even better results.
I would suggest starting with these settings next time if you are shooting hand held:
f/8
ISO 200 or ISO 400
1/200s or 1/400s
This would put you one stop of exposure over looney 11 which is another good place to start at. I usually start at looney 11 and adjust from there to get as much exposure as I can without clipping the highlights and then pull things down in post. I also shoot off of a tripod now all the time so I always am shooting at ISO 100 and have gone as long as 1/40s with a 2000mm f/20 setup.