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COURTESY NASA
On an orbit that took the International Space Station over the Pacific in October 2010, one of the crew members captured this image of the Hawaiian Islands. It will pass over Honolulu on Tuesday evening.
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If skies are clear, the International Space Station will make a fairly bright pass over Honolulu on Tuesday evening, buzzing above a pair of planets.
The space station will rise in the southwest at 6:54 p.m. and move to the right, passing above Venus and Mars at 6:56 p.m.
It will be about halfway up the sky in the northwest between 6:57 and 6:58 p.m., then cut through the constellation Cassiopeia, which looks like a bent letter M. It should be visible for another minute or so, passing above the North Star just before 6:59 p.m.
The space station is visible just after sunset and just before sunrise when it is illuminated by sunlight against a dark sky.
It is currently 268 miles up, traveling at 17,136 mph.
There are two Americans aboard, Navy Capt. Barry E. "Butch" Wilmore and Air Force Col. Terry Virts. The crew includes two Russian men, one Russian woman and an Italian woman.
Earlier Tuesday, at 6:40 p.m., the Iridium 67 satellite will flash in the south, at 38 degrees above the horizon, or about two-fifths of the way up the sky. Iridium communications satellites have large antennas that reflect sunlight to the eye when they are in just the right spot.
On Tuesday the brightness will be minus 4, about the same as nearby Venus, the brightest planet. The space station will be less bright at minus 2.4.