STARGAZERS WILL BE treated to a rare sight this evening as Mars makes an unusually close approach to the moon in the night sky.

This event comes when the Red Planet is particularly bright, making it easily visible without specialist equipment and in areas with high light pollution.

“It will be a spectacular sight to the naked eye all Tuesday evening,” David Moore, founder of Astronomy Ireland magazine, said in a statement.

“This is one of the most amazing sights in the sky of the whole month.

You do not need any telescopes or binoculars to see it so we want the whole country to enjoy this very bright sight from about 6pm on when the sky gets dark, for several hours.

Moore stressed that the apparent close pass – known as a conjunction – is a line-of-sight effect; the Moon and Mars remain as far away from each other as normal, but appear close together from here on Earth.

It’s the first of five conjunctions this month: the Moon and Saturn, and also the Moon and Venus, will meet on January 23, followed by Jupiter on January 26, and Mars again on January 31.