That is a beautiful picture. I envy you because we have so much light pollution here. 
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The bright white reflection against the black is so hard for me to handle for me Seeing the craters so clearly is awesome. 
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Inverse square law is immensely interesting but I think in practical terms it’s easier to explain the difference between the two shots in terms of the exposure triangle and your cameras metering system.
If you’re shooting in basically an auto program, the camera is likely defaulting to what Canon calls Evaluative metering (I believe - I shoot Nikon which calls their default scene metering Matrix metering). It’s reading the light in the scene and trying to determine a proper exposure to have the majority of the scene exposed properly.
When you are zoomed way out, it’s seeing the moon as just a small pin prick of light and making exposure adjustments based on the majority of the scene - which is the sky. So you end up with a sky that is exposed properly and a moon that is over-exposed.
On your zoomed in shot, the moon comprises a much larger portion of the scene so the camera says, ok - let’s expose for this big bright thing hence you have a moon that is properly exposed and shows a ton of detail and a sky that is underexposed.
All things being equal, if you took the settings from your zoomed in shot (shutter, aperture, ISO) and applied them to your wide shot, you would have a properly exposed moon and a dark sky.
Different metering modes will give different results based on where you’re metering the light from. Evaluative or matrix will read all of the scene and try to determine the best compromise for exposure. Center-weighted will read a percentage of the viewfinder around the center of the scene (or your manually selected focus point), and then spot-metering will read a much smaller percentage percentage around your selected focus point.
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Thanks! That’s basically what I assumed was going on but couldn’t articulate it.
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I was just going to say it’s because the subject is closer to the light source than the background, thus the way you’ve framed the shot is causing the background to be dark. I don’t find that too be a satisfactory answer so sent to Google to learn as much or as little as desired.
I like your answer too
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I did a poetry binge a few years ago. The task was to write thirty poems in thirty days. Some were good some were bad. But the wild thing about it was that for the next year I was consistently able to come up with poems better than I ever had when I was teaching English and writing regularly. Something about giving your mental space over to the poetic imagination and letting the experience nudge/shake the words loose. Totally different mental and emotional space than the usual essay/sermon writing mind that usually is at work.
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Beautiful!! This is one of my favorites that I took.
Looking forward to the Strawberry moon on Tuesday.
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Wow. With no reference to the moon, that piece is totally wicked.
You’re a gifted fella. Don’t stop writing!
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Nice!
I am particularly fond of Mare Tranquillitatis, (that Pac-Man shape) where Apollo 11 landed (opposite side of the mouth).
What inspiration would an astronaut who has walked on that world feel when he looked up at it?!
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So true! I’m fascinated with the moon!
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If a full moon passes by without my noticing it, I know that I am too busy. The first app I downloaded on my iPhone was a lunar calendar. Next weeks full moon is particularly important to me for my job.
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Why is that?
Just a curiousity question since I enjoy the full moon names and meanings.
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First Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox is Easter. The Gregorian calendar came into existence for this reason. One thing the church and science got along ok. Funny about the folks who refused to go along with the new science (aside from those folks who use lunar calendars and not solar).
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OK, so understand! And thank you for sharing.
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I can never remember if the moon is waxing or waning, so keep on working out mentally if the moon is up at sunset during wax or wane.
Never manage to remember that one.
But, one of the Hollywood gripes I can never repress is moon phases. Full moon rises as the sun sets. Full moon is never out at day time. And if you see the moon at daytime, the crescent is always arcing away from the sun … ->
Meaning it is either:
SUN )
or
( SUN
This last one is what so many sci-fi things get wrong when they decide to have multiple moons. Or they have the moons all in different phases, but roughly the same location in the night sky…
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Wax on, wane off 
I’m sure someone has a decent way of remembering it. Waxing has visible moon on right; waning has the visible moon on left. Karate Kid works for me, for some reason. 
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Oh, I know which one is filling and which one is draining.
I just cannot remember if the moon is heading TOWARD a full, or AWAY from a full on any given day when I notice the thing (and I don’t keep a lunar calendar because I typically don’t care).
It is more a matter of glancing up and seeing a nice large nearly full moon and wondering if I just missed seeing a full, or if I will get to in a few days.
And in case I stroked anyone else’s curiosity, if you see the moon at/after sunset, it is waxing. If you see it at/after sunrise it is waning.
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Nice method of placing it! 
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Wax on, wane off.
In the Northern Hemisphere, remember COD. 1st qtr looks like the letter “C”, O is full and D is 3rd qtr.
In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s DOC.
Finally, if you see the moon in the evening, it’s waxing somewhere between New, 1st Q, & Full. If you see it in the am, it’s waning between Full, 3rd Q, & New.
Clear Skies, Dennis
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