A PENSIONER from Hindley has snapped up some of the first ever close-up pictures taken of the "dark-side" of the moon . . . at a car boot sale.

Douglas Seal, 66, from Brookdale Road, paid just £25 at the boot sale for the historic black and white images -- thought to be some of the first taken of the side of the moon which cannot be seen from the Earth.

The astonishing 1,000 images taken by Ranger VII spaceship in 1964 are so detailed they can pinpoint the area where the first man walked on the moon as well as showing the pock-marked lunar surface with all its craters and ridges.

Scientists from the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire have confirmed that the strips of negatives were almost certainly taken by cameras from the Ranger space ship -- one of the first probes in the NASA moon-space programme. Mr Seal said: "There is no doubt that these are originals which were taken by the Ranger VII craft. These are historical photographic images. You cannot put a price on them. They are part of the programme of exploration of space. They are part of history."

The images are all carefully labelled with the moon's grid references to show exactly which area of the lunar surface each one represents.

Mr Seal believes they were taken by NASA programme to carefully map the moon's surface in preparation for possible landings by American astronauts.

They hark back to the time of the space race between the USA and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 60s.

Retired photographer Mr Seal, who still has a love of photography and a fascination with astronomy, only came across the images by accident.

He saw the photo negatives -- along with a box stuffed full of similar images from Ranger VIII but which are copies -- at a car boot sale in Manchester and could not believe his luck.

Operations engineer from Jodrell Bank, Ian Morrison, said: "They are historical items and he is very lucky to have picked them up. These are the first detailed images of the moon's surface. The Ranger craft were pioneering missions and were a precursor to the Apollo missions which landed men on the moon."

He said the images were beamed back to NASA on Earth and the negatives would have been developed from the radio waves.

Mr Seal now wants to find out how they came to be in England or any more information on the Ranger space missions -- ring him on 01942 700369.