Starship Asterisk*

Hello,

I am a fine artist and professor in the School of Art at the University of Washington. I am a complete novice in this field so I appreciate your direction on how to find what I'm looking for. I'm working on a project with a museum and I am searching for the following:

A photograph of the sky/stars on October 5, 1987, southern hemisphere. Ideally this is a darkroom print or a negative that I can acquire or reproduce. If it's a digital file, then I can make my own negative/print from it.

I've been told that I'm more likely to find this through an observatory, rather than NASA. I am flexible on the hemisphere and format of the image, though my goal is to find exactly what I described. As I understand it, the hemisphere I'm looking for might help me narrow down which observatories to reach out to.

Can anyone point me in the right direction, please? Does anyone have access to an archive or know anyone who does? Does anyone know if such images were made, like a daily photo of the sky in the 1980's? Does anyone know in which format these were made?

I greatly appreciate your guidance!

You might try NGC3314 (real name William Keel)

He's old enough, friendly enough, and has access to enough telescopes that maaaaybe he'll have something for you or would know who to ask. I also wouldn't count on obtaining any negatives or prints. A digital file might be easy enough to obtain. It's kind of asking a lot to have someone dig around in a physical archive to find a picture without much of a compelling reason to do so, although a lot of astronomers do appreciate fine art. If all you need is any picture of stars from any southern observatory, maybe someone can and will help. And if you were open to something like spectroscopy, then that would possibly give you even more options.

I tried ESO (European Southern Observatory) online archive and it only goes back to 1991, though older data surely exists somewhere, if it hasn't rotted away.

Thank you geck, I'll keep digging!

Yes, a digital file would probably be just fine for me, just reaching for the gold first! And as for someone been motivated to help, I would hope and expect to compensate someone for their efforts.