jeff_livacich

You want a critique? OK, nice shot, nothing special, seen it before. Technically very noisy. Appears to be a crop from a much larger image.

Nice shot, but too much HDR look in the white building. It looks unnatural. The red is overdone, too except the beacon. Tone it down to natural levels and you've got a great shot.

It's a 7 bladed diaphragm. An odd numbered diaphragm blades wil give double the numbers of points as blades. Even numbered give the same.

A striking and unusual image.
I had one immediate problem with the moon in the image and figured it was manipulated. That is the impossibility of having a full or nearly full moon in the image near a sunrise/sunset. That close, it would have to be a crescent. Your explanation makes sense. I assume its circularity is due to a combination of overexposure and its movement during the exposure. I think it would have been fine to take another shot that would register the crescent moon as it appeared, and insert it later in place of the blurred crescent. That would make the depiction more accurate.
I would leave the moon the size or nearly the size it is. The image has a wide angle feel to it and a large moon would detract, as well as being rather cliche'd. A small moon image can give a greater sense of space and isolation.
I've spent a lot of time out in JT over the last 35 years and I'm happy to say that your picture is different enough that it has inspired me to go out and approach some familiar places in a new way.