Mars made a dramatic apparition during 2003 passing within 0.373 AU (35 million miles) of Earth in late August. The red planet shone brightly reaching magnitude -2.88 on August 27th (opposition).

I took this image about a week before opposition using a Phillips ToUCam (webcam). Seeing was pretty good that night - you can actually see the volcano, Olympus Mons, in the upper right of the image.

 Imaging Details