The Moon also plays currently a very special role in my life and my work days are dictated to a large extent by the current Moon phase :)

It's not discussed in the article but we have detailed models (ROLO[0] and LIME[1]) for how much light is reflected from the Moon and can be captured by a telescope. Like this one can radiometrically calibrate a telescope, that is, find a mapping between the digital numbers coming out from the sensor and actual radiance values.

[0] https://www.usgs.gov/media/files/rolo-lunar-model-and-databa... [1] https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/24/3649/2024/