Satellite watching

Satellite watching or satellite spotting is a hobby which consists of the observation and tracking of Earth artificial satellites. People with this hobby are variously called satellite watchers, trackers, spotters, observers, etc.

Amateur satellite spotting traces back to the days of early artificial satellites when the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory launched the Operation Moonwatch (1956), a program to enlist amateur astronomers in the effort to track Soviet sputniks, in an analogy with the World War II Ground Observer Corps program to spot enemy bombers. Moonwatch was crucial until professional stations were deployed in 1958. The program was discontinued in 1975.

There are many planetarium and satellite tracking computer programs to aid satellite spotting. More recently, accompanied by the development of Augmented Reality technologies, satellite watching mobile programs have been developed. During the 64th International Astronautical Congress 2013 in Beijing a citizen science method to track satellite beacon signals by a Distributed Ground Station Network (DGSN) was presented. The purpose of this network is to support small satellites and cubesats of universities.

In February 2008 the front page of The New York Times hosted an article about an amateur satellite watcher Ted Molczan in relation to the story about falling American spy satellite USA 193. American officials were reluctant to provide information about the satellite, and instead, Ted Molczan, as the article says, "uncovers some of the deepest of the government’s expensive secrets and shares them on the Internet."

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