diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 38a4541..9e9f82a 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@
 path = 'sgp4/__init__.py'
 with open(path, 'rb') as f:
     text = f.read().decode('utf-8')
+text = text.replace('-*- coding: utf-8 -*-', '')  # for Python 2.7
 namespace = {}
 eval(compile(text, path, 'exec'), namespace)