*The* astronomical event of 2003 is the Mars opposition of August. That month, Mars has never been so close to Earth in the last 20 years. One good reason to send a load of Mars robots to the red planet, but also to observe Mars from a telescope. If you really want to know what you're going to see through your telescope, Mars Previewer II may be of interest : it's a Windows program which was distributed with a copy of Sky and Telescope, and shows you the current visible details of the red planet. I didn't managed to get it running under Wine, so for the Linux and Mac OSX folks, the next link may be of interest : this site simulates the rotation of Mars, so you''ll have a good impression of the possible visible details.

In 2001, NASA launched the Mars Odyssey, to map the Mars surface. The result is depicted on the Themis site, with high detailled pictures of our neighbour planet; 1 pixel equals 20 meters. The climax on the site though is this magnificent inzoomable Mars chart.