He is seen thus about two months before or after opposition.

In the former case, he rises late and comes to the meridian six hours or so after midnight.

In the latter case, he is well seen in the evening, coming to the meridian at six.

His appearance and relative dimensions as he passes from opposition to quadrature are shown in the last three figures of the upper row.
Mars' polar caps may be seen with very moderate powers.
I add four sets of meridians (Plate 6), by filling in which from the charts the observer may obtain any number of views of the planet as it appears at different times.
Passing over the asteroids, which are not very interesting objects to the amateur telescopist, we come to Jupiter, the giant of the solar system, surpassing our Earth more than 1400 times in volume, and overweighing all the planets taken together twice over.
Jupiter is one of the easiest of all objects of telescopic observation.
No one can mistake this orb when it shines on a dark sky, and only Venus can be mistaken for it when seen as a morning or evening star.

Sometimes both are seen together on the twilight sky, and then Venus is generally the brighter.