Why does my old camera take a better, closer picture compared to my new camera?

I just purchased a Nikon D3100.It came with the regular 18mm-55 mm lens and the 55mm-200mm lens. There's a lunar ecplise tonight, so I decided to go outside and take some pics with my new camera! Well, I decided to take my other camera, which is a Kodak Z981 that has the 26x optical zoom. Can someone tell me how come the Z981 takes a better pic of the moon that my D3100? With the D3100 on the view finder, the moon looks AMAZING. Great close up and what not, well then when you take the picture, it looks like a little dot on the screen. You figure, what you see in the view finder is how it would take the pic. Well not with this camera. On the other hand however, what you see in the view finder is what you get. When i take a picture of the moon, its close up and looks good, and it doesn't look like a little dot after taking the picture. So can someone please help me and help me understand this better!

If I understand this ramble correctly you're saying your kodak did better moon pics? Your kodak reaches 676mm at the tele end, your nikon only does 300mm (both in 35mm equivelant of course)

The Z981 must have a longer focal length (equivalent) than 200mm that is why you can get closer shots with it. Picture quality depends on the photographer. You might not have used the optimum settings on the D3100 to get a better shot. Using Auto on a dSLR is the worst way to use it.

On a dSLR, you don't get exactly what you see in the viewfinder most of the time. You only see exactly what the lens sees. If you see a large moon then in the picture it appears small, you may be just using LiveView and zooming it there. You may not be zooming the lens itself. You may need to read the manual some more to get the most out of your camera.

Nikon D3100 does not have digital zoom in its features but in kodak have 5x pixels in its features that is the only difference with them

You have just said it yourself. "What you see in the viewfinder is what you get" - an SLR does show you exactly what you will get, but then so does your old camera show you what you get on its screen. The different types of viewfinder are confusing you, but they are both telling the truth. The 200mm tele is not as long as the 26x tele on your old camera, end of story. To get a lens that long for your SLR would cost a lot of money, and be very big and heavy.