A camera lens that was used on the moon by astronaut Dave Scott during the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Apollo 15 mission has been auctioned for about $453,300 on April 21, Thursday. Scott received the camera part after his two-week historic trip during the summer of 1971. Since then the Zeiss lens has been part of his personal collection.      

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The lens was built for the Hasselblad Electric Data Camera, according to Phys. It has been modified to make it easier for astronauts wearing spacesuit gloves to use.  

NASA's Apollo 15 mission lasted from July 26 to Aug. 7, 1971.

The camera lens up for auction was made by German company Carl Zeiss and used during the space agency's four lunar surface missions and two days in lunar orbit. It is 12 inches (30.5 centimeters) long  Boston-based RR Auction reports that the camera took almost 300 photographs on the moon's surface and while in orbit, according to CNN.

Scott's first of three missions was with Neil Armstrong who was the first human to walk on the moon's surface. They conducted the first successful two-vehicle docking in space.  

Meanwhile, 83-year-old Scott's last mission in outer space was Apollo 15. It was NASA's fourth manned moon-landing mission.

In 1975 Scott retired from the United States Air Force with the rank of colonel. He had logged more than 5,600 hours of flying time throughout his career.  

Robert Livingston is executive vice president at RR Auction. He shared that the auction house was honored to sell the historic item, and that the Zeiss lens was one of the biggest pieces of space hardware utilized on the lunar surface to be auctioned off.     

In related news, a US Senate bill proposed a $19.3 billion NASA budget for the 2017 fiscal year. However, the budget plan reserves funds for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion space capsule before the other parts of NASA's exploration program. Basically this would spend $1 billion to create new jobs for building a rocket that NASA does not need for its Mars mission.

Here's a UFO-shaped object during the Apollo 15 mission: