A communications satellite will briefly but intensely light up a section of the evening sky over Honolulu Friday.

The Iridium 52 satellite will reflect sunlight back down to the city at 7:11 p.m. if the weather cooperates.

The flare will appear for several seconds in the northeast, just over halfway up the sky, to the right of and below the constellation Cassiopeia, which looks like a squashed letter M.

The satellite is 594 miles up, but has huge shiny antennas that make it visible against the darkening sky when sunlight strikes at just the right angle.

It will be very much brighter than the star below it, Capella, in the constellation Auriga.

Iridium Communications Inc. operates 66 satellites in low Earth orbit to provide voice and data coverage to satellite phones, pagers and transceivers worldwide.