went outside earlier and the stars were out and the moon was a sliver automatically thought about grabbing camera setting it on a tripod and taking a picture I had it on all sorts of settings and I couldn't get past subject too dark I had iso at the highest etc. and still said subject too dark so I had to give up in the end. was it a lost course or did I forget to do something?.
The moon is illuminated by our same sun, and so the normal exposure is about same as daylight (some say Sunny 11 instead of Sunny 16).
However, the moon is frontally lighted at full moon, side lighted at quarter moon, and back lighted at new moon.
The moons surface is dark, 12%, darker than an 18% gray card.
A light meter sees all the black surrounding it, so try manual exposure.
So it is not totally obvious, but there are many articles on the internet on the subject.
See
photographing the moon - Google Search
But most of these ignore the exposure issue, esp at new moon.
So start at
Moon Photography - A How To Guide (see the chart - it is more from an astronomy viewpoint than from photographers)