First time shooting the moon

[Drake]

In most P&S cameras there's no need to stop down, as the lens are usually sharp enough wide open. There's not much benefit from closing the aperture. Also remember, that the aperture scale in P&S is a little bit different than in DSLR world. f8 is usually as slow as it gets, only some P&S cameras go to f11. I also wouldn't advise raising the ISO, as you have already cropped the shot close to 100%. When viewed at 100%, even photos taken with the best P&S cameras show quality degradation at ISO 200.

You could try a tripod, but I don't think there'll be a visible difference. Shutter speed of 1/160 is usually fast enough to hand hold an image stabilized P&S, even at the telephoto end around ~400 mm equiv.

A few years ago I was doing the same thing with my Panasonic FZ7. Holding it at 432mm equiv with 1/160 shutter speed was not a problem, so my moon shots looked exactly the same from a tripod and hand held.

I don't think there's much to improve here.