Buzz Aldrin’s famous 1969 moon walk picture sells at auction

COPENHAGEN

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More than 70 original NASA photographs including a celebrated image of Buzz Aldrin’s moon walk taken by Neil Armstrong were sold at auction in Copenhagen on March 9 for more than 155,000 euros ($172,000).

The Aldrin image, which fetched 5,373 euros, shows the astronaut on the surface of the moon in July 1969 during the first manned lunar landing. It was famously used on the cover of LIFE magazine.

Armstrong, the first man to step onto the Moon, can be seen in the reflection of Aldrin’s visor.

A total of 74 NASA photographs were put up for sale including 26 taken on the Moon during the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s.

“We sold 73 of the 74 photos,” the Bruun Rasmussen auction house told AFP.

Put up for sale by a foreign collector who has asked to remain anonymous, the auction house had estimated the collection at almost 190,000 euros.

The most valuable item, the first shot of an “Earthrise” photographed by US astronaut William Anders while orbiting the Moon in December 1968 on Apollo 8, sold for 11,800 euros.

The last time man set foot on the Moon was in 1972 during the Apollo 17 mission, but NASA is planning to send astronauts again in 2025-2026.