Space station to stream across sky Thursday night

The International Space Station will put in a bright appearance in Hawaii skies Thursday evening if the weather cooperates.

The space station will rise in the southwest at about 7:35 p.m. and arc high and to the right. Just over two minutes later, it will pass to the right of the constellation Orion, easy to spot by the three stars in its belt.

Just before 7:38 p.m. it will pass just above the moon, a narrow waxing crescent near the bright star Aldebaran. That would be a good time to look at the moon with an amateur telescope.

Venus will be low in the western horizon.

The space station will reach its peak below the constellation Gemini, which is straight up, then descend northeast, passing between the Big Dipper and the North Star just before 7:40 p.m.

The space station, 250 miles up, is visible in the early evening and pre-dawn darkness when the sun illuminates it against the darker sky. Aboard are astronauts Richard Arnold, Andrew Feustel and Scott Tingle, Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Oleg Artemyev, and Norishige Kanai of Japan.

The forecast for Thursday calls for partly cloudy skies and no chance of rain, the National Weather Service said.