Capturing the “Impossible”?

So I had the occasion to be outside during a hazy, crisp, full moon night and miraculously my camera was in my hand.  Imagine that .  With the haze being illuminated by that big bright moon and the silhouette of the bare tree in the foreground,  we had all of the makings of a good Halloween picture.  Until I tried to shoot it.
If you’ve tried to photograph the moon, you know it can be a process of trial-and-error before you get the settings right to expose that giant light bulb in the sky.  Now consider how you’d expose the moon AND get more of the silhouette of the tree in the foreground!  After handholding 10 or 15 shots it became apparent that this was one of those  “beyond the camera” moments.  It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t obtain detail in the moon as there wasn’t really any to be obtained in the hazy sky.  The problem was that if I exposed for the tree, the moon blew out the whole image.

Luckily I was shooting in RAW and it was Lightroom to the rescue!  With the help of an adjustment brush to reveal more of the tree and then a healthy dose of noise reduction, I was able to come much closer to what my eyes actually saw that chilly, spooky evening.
Have you ever found yourself shooting that seemingly “impossible” scene? What did you do to overcome it?