A set of personal photographs belonging to astronaut Ed White and taken on the Gemini 4 mission (1965) have sold for £7,000 ($10,772) at Dreweatts & Bloomsbury.

The lot headlined a major auction of NASA photographs in London on February 26.

Ed White performed the first US spacewalk

White undertook the first US spacewalk on the mission, an experience that he reportedly enjoyed so much that he had to be ordered to return to the vessel.

It was described by the auction house an "an outstanding collection documenting the Gemini 4 mission and the first spacewalk by an American.

"It comprises 8 photographs of Ed White's EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) taken by McDivitt from the spacecraft, the first view of a spacecraft in space taken by Ed White during the EVA..."

A print of William Anders' iconic Earthrise, Apollo 8, December 1968 also sold well - achieving £7,000 ($10,775).

Archibald MacLeish described the photograph in a New York Times editorial on Christmas Day 1968: "To see the earth as it truly is: small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold. Brothers who know they are truly brothers."

Its impact on publication is often described as a turning point for the environmental movement.

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