Mars came to opposition on March 16, 1997 in the western part of Virgo, but I didn't get a picture of it at that time ~ the closest I came to that date was two weeks later on March 29th, the first day after Mars crossed over the border back into Leo.  Here, Mars has faded to magnitude -1.14 from its opposition magnitude of -1.29, a difference that is not very noticeable to a casual observer.  Unannotated image.