help with lunar photography

Hello

I am very new to the world of photography. I have owned my rebel xt for less than 3 months. I have the lens kit that came with it and a 70-300mm telephoto lens. I have taken at leat 100 pictures of the moon and I am not happy with any of the shots. They all seem to be blurry or something and not very detailed. And what is with the red ring around it? I read on a site somewhere to always change the pictures of the moon to black and white. This seems to improve the pictures somewhat but they still are not good. I always use a tripod and timer so it isn't camera shake and I have tried many different shutter speeds and iso settings from 100-800. How can I make the pictures better? Here are best ones I have taken to date and as you can see they are not very good.

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Can you mention the exposure time for these images?
If you expose moon images for long time, it gives thus blurryness. This is becuase the moon it self is not static in one postion, so when it changes its postion, u get the blurryness

ok the first picture had a shutter speed of 1/60, f /5.6 and iso 100. the 2nd picture was taken at shutter speed 1/125. f/5.6 and iso 200.

These are WAY overexposed. The moon is a sunny day object (except during lunar eclipse). Try the sunny 11 rule:
At iso 100, f/11, 1/100 sec.
At iso 200, f/11, 1/200 sec or f/16, 1/100 sec.
Under-expose by 1 stop usually bring out the contrast better.
Since the moon is bright enough, use f/11 or f/16 to minimize the effect of atmospheric seeing.
Shoot at less than full moon to get better crater features.

ps. The red ring is blooming from overexposure.

Ken

Try the setting where the mirror will swing out of the way first and then set the timer.

Those shots turned out better than mine! Are they cropped? I couldn't get much clarity from my 28-300 (effective 45-480), and I had HEAPS of noise, so at least you don't have my problem

thanks for the tips I wil try these things at the first opportunity

Remember that the moon is lit by the sun, its brighter than you might think.
Ive had good results early in the evening (reaserch moon cycles, and find the right time that the moon comes up /after/ sunset.)
Low aperture to keep exposier short, then something like 1/10 for exposing it.