West Virginia Super Moon

The moon was in sharp focus in my view finder yet the image came out

distorted and I have no clue as to why.

 

Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i

Lens: 500mm tube f/8 CPL filter

Exposure: 1/60

 

This seems to have happened on most of the pictures I took that night.

 

Any information would be helpful thanks in advanced.

You would be better off to ask this question on the Beginner's Forum where more people would see it and you could give some back and forth responses. If you were hand holding the camera, I would say at that shutter speed you were getting camera motion blur.

Was mounted on a tripod and I was using a cable release.

I switched my focus to manual after I saw a similar problem.  Did you use auto focus?