This is how the moon looked thru my Nikon P950 superzoom today on the International Observe the Moon Night 2021 (InOMN). I would love to extract more clarity less grain. Is this a good case for using the “wavelet levels”? I haven’t used them ever.
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Just curious about something: Why are you using LMMS to demosaic?
This isn’t a high ISO image (ISO 100, base ISO for the Coolpix P950) and the noise/grain is most likely generated by the dynamic enhanced digital zoom (=software zoom) feature that this camera has and having to significantly increase the lightness.
If you switch from LMMS to AMaZE+VNG4, leave the Contrast threshold to its auto, 23 setting (you can try increasing it to 32/33) and up the Impulse Noise Reduction to +/- 67 you get a (much) better starting point.
Combine this with targeted noise reduction, be it via Wavelets or Local Adjustments → Blur/Grain & Denoise, and you get an even better result.
Here’s an edit with the above incorporated. This isn’t my knd of image, and I’m not at all sure what the WB needs to be for this one and thus what the colour of the moon actually needs to be. Choose Temperature Correlation and left it at that.
I don’t think that sharpening and contrast need to be upped all that much, but that is a personal taste thingy. This example edit is about noise, demosaicing and wavelets.
I tryed to extract more colors, I didn’t enhance clarity.
With darktable.
Another option, also trying to get the colors in the moon, not the yellow tint it has at dawn.
dt 3.7.0
trying to experiment with the new Color Balance RGB and Diffuse module (last time I tried to edit moon, they were not there).
DSCN2454.NRW.xmp (9.7 KB)
Another version, with improved contrast and definition (I think).
Oh! definitely YES… Thanks @Thomas_Do
I use RT, so could you mention which filters/controls made the difference? I will try those in RT.
Thanks @Jade_NL, choice of LMMSE was just accidental 
Yes, Amaze+VNG4 makes considerable improvement. I have rarely touched demosaicing setting thinking it to be too technical… I should make an attempt to understand at least a couple of the strategies - I will. And wavelets too …
The edit is superb
Main modules were local contrast and contrast equalizer for increasing contrast and denoise (profiled) for noise reduction. In the end some contrast adjustments with the (legacy) tone curve.
Here are a few demosaicing pointers to get you going:
In real life your image has both flat and detailed areas so a mix is best in most cases.
The differences between AMaZE, RCD and DCB are minor but can be of influence. The first two are very good but might not do a good job when it comes to false colours and colour reconstruction.
Assuming that you have a base profile, I would suggest you set your default demosaicing to: RCD+VNG4 (or if your machine isn’t all that powerful: RCD+Bilinear). This one is in general a rather good choice. You can always check the other 2 dual options to see which might be the better choice.
There are 2 other demosacing methods that are worth mentioning: LMMSE and IGV. Both are for (very) high ISO images. These aren’t denoisers, though. They do, however, demosaic in a way that lessens the effect that noise has on the RAW image.
These 2 come with drawbacks as well. For example: Using (capture) sharpening is all but out of the question (you can use an adapted Capture sharpening for the “lower” high ISOs). Only use these 2 demosaicing methods if you really have no other choice.
To give you an idea: I use LMMSE from ISO 9000 and up on my main camera. I do have to mention that it does depend on the camera, my other camera uses LMMSE from ISO 6400 and up.
In general you do need to zoom in rather far (400% isn’t unusual) to see the differences between the methods available. Arguably that might be seen as pixel peeping, but if you are serious about this and want to print (larger) images it is worth the time/effort to do so and choosing the wrong one can make things worse.
Andy Astbury made a video about all this: Demosaicing Algorithms & Capture Sharpening. Long, but worth it.
Possibly Pixel Shift should also be mentioned as a important alternative demosaicing method, but I do not have a camera that uses this, and thus also no knowledge about it.
Yes! Moon has colors, and are fun to play with! 
