Space station to make bright passes this week

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.