Earth Orbiting Satellite Observers Club – EOSOC

The Astronomical League’s satellite observing program is called the Earth Orbiting Satellite Observers Club and is administered by Tom DeClue of the Colorado Springs Astronomical Society. This club is similar to many of the observing award programs hosted by the League whereby participants record observations for a variety of Earth orbiting satellites. After meeting all of the program requirements, award certificates are issued to the observer. Participants must be members of the Astronomical League to receive this award.

This observing program is designed to get those new to satellite observing familiar with the terminology, and techniques of tracking satellites. The list of objects required for the basic award include targets that can be easily tracked using the unaided eye or binoculars, including the space shuttle, the international space station – Alpha, several operational vehicles, and numerous rocket bodies such as GPS (Global Positioning System) satellites, Russian Molniya spacecraft, and even geosynchronous/geostationary satellites. Some of the smaller targets may require telescopes and/or photographic techniques to identify.

The specifics of the EOSOC observing program are listed on the EOSOC Tutorial page, and are also on the downloadable observation report forms located on right sidebar of these EOSOC pages (scroll down towards the bottom).