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Snap it up now! The only camera that went to the moon and back

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By Noel Young, Correspondent

February 1, 2014 | 2 min read

Not exactly a Kodak box brownie and the price is different too: at least $200,000. For this Hasselblad camera is the only one to have gone to the moon and back.

Moon camera: Going for $200,000?

The silver camera, designed to be attached to the front of an astronaut's suit, was used by astronaut Jim Irwin to take pictures during the 1971 Apollo 15 mission. It is being auctioned by the Westlicht gallery of Vienna, Austria. Gallery owner Peter Coeln is holding the camera, officially the Hasselblad Lunar Module Pilot Camera.

NASA sent many cameras to the moon on its six lunar missions, but the Hasselblad was the only one to return to to Earth intact.

Reason: the cameras were very heavy and the astronauts would abandon them to create more room in their payload, said the San Jose Mercury News. They also frequently jammed, possibly due to damage from razor-sharp moon dust.

Photo: Dieter Nagl/AFP Photo/Getty Images

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