The International Space Station will make some bright appearances over
Hawaii this week if the clouds cooperate.
For early risers today,
the space station will appear in the northwest about
6:04 a.m.
It will move high and to the right, passing above the Big Dipper about 6:06 a.m.
It will then pass high above the bright star Arcturus (Hokule‘a) low in the east, then pass above Mars, Jupiter and Venus, all roughly aligned in the east-southeast. Mars will be in the constellation Virgo.
At 5:57 a.m. Tuesday, the space station will rise in the west and move to the left, passing just above the three-star belt of Orion and below Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, in the constellation Canis Major. It will blink out in the south around 6 a.m.
Mars, Jupiter and Venus again will be rising in the east.
On Thanksgiving, the station will rise under a crescent moon in the southeast about 7:07 p.m.
Moving to the right, it will pass through the so-called Summer Triangle, formed
by the bright stars Vega,
Altair and Deneb, before vanishing above the North Star about 7:11 p.m.
The space station is
visible just after dusk and just before dawn when it is illuminated by the sun against the dark sky. It orbits at 5 miles per second at a current height of 254 miles.
Aboard are U.S. astronauts Joe Acaba, Mark Vande Hei and Randy Bresnik, two Russians and an Italian.