Mars has spent 1994 in the morning sky, at first close to the Sun, low in the dawn, but slowly creeping outward until it finally became easily visible by early summer. Now it is approaching its February 12, 1995 opposition, which will occur in western Leo. But even three months before that, it has already entered Leo. On this date, Mars is magnitude +0.48, so it is already brighter than Betelgeuse usually is. Unannotated image.
Mars' position here is already well within its retrograde loop for the upcoming opposition in February. The opposition will come well to the north of its current position, at almost exact- ly the same longitude.
Note how Mars is already north of the ecliptic by this time, even though it has not yet begun retrograding. Oppositions in Leo always result in Mars having the greatest altitude above the ecliptic of any of its opposition types. So we get to see Mars higher in the sky than normal, but unfortunately it is also an aphelic event, meaning that Mars is near aphelion during its oppositions in Leo, as such appearing fainter and smaller than at most other oppositions.
This picture was taken with my Nikon FE2 and a 60 mm lens and most likely Ektachrome 400 film which I most likely push processed to ISO 800. The slide was scanned in 2025 with enhancement to reduce the vignetting.