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Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, secretly took home a bag of mementos from the mission including the camera used to film his "one small step" and the planting of the US flag on the lunar surface.

He kept the equipment in a cupboard at his home where it stayed for four decades, discovered by his widow Carol after Armstrong's death in 2012.

Allan Needell, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, said: "I received an email from Carol Armstrong that she had located, in one of Neil's closets, a white cloth bag filled with assorted small items that looked like they may have come from a spacecraft.

"Needless to say, for a curator of a collection of space artefacts, it is hard to imagine anything more exciting."
Inside the bag were 17 objects from the Apollo 11 mission including Armstrong's waist tether, utility lights, and emergency wrench.

Most importantly, it contained the 16mm data acquisition camera (DAC) used to film footage of the final approach to the moon on July 20, 1969.

The camera was also used to record Armstrong going down the ladder and taking his famous "one small step," the planting of the flag and other footage of Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface.

The cartridges from the camera, containing the iconic footage, were taken back separately so there was no film in the camera found in Armstrong's cupboard.

But Mr Needell told CollectSpace.com: "The 16mm DAC, given the images that it captured, ranks as enormously important,"
The white cloth storage bag itself was known as a "McDivitt purse" and, along with its contents, was supposed to have been left in the Eagle lunar module and destroyed.

Armstrong did mention the bag to Michael Collins, the command module pilot, as they and Aldrin began heading back to Earth.

He said: "That (is) just a bunch of trash that we want to take back – LM (lunar module) parts, odds and ends."
It was not unusual for astronauts to keep small surplus pieces of equipment from their missions as personal mementos.
Experts have surmised that Armstrong decided to take the camera and other objects home for sentimental reasons.