This first chart is to help you pick a suitable observing location. It shows the local horizon at 1 AM. (Local is Bowen Island, British Columbia.)
The green line shows where, relative to the horizon, Mars will be in sky at 1 AM from July 1 to September 30.
(The stars in the first image are shown for 1 AM on September 30, therefore that is the only day that the position of Mars is correctly placed among the them.)
You can see that a good southern horizon will be necessary for observing. Mars will be best to observe when it is close to the Meridian, or due south. That means you will want to observe later in the beginning of summer, and earlier toward autumn.
To understand this chart, forget the upper plot where the position of Mars among the stars is valid only on September 30... that was to show the position relative to the horizon.
Here I have plotted the positions of Mars against the stars of Aquarius from June to December, 2003. The stars are orientated as we would see them in the sky. In spring, Mars moves from right-to-left (eastward) among the stars. This is its normal course as it orbits the Sun.
At the time of Opposition we on the Earth -- orbiting closer to the Sun and on the faster inside track -- pass Mars. That means that to us, as we pass, Mars seems to move backward through the stars. So, at the end of July, Mars will appear to slow its eastward movement, and begin to drift westward. It's called retrograde motion. By the end of September it will have resumed its eastward motion.
Since no telescope is needed to observe this retrograde motion, it has been known since antiquity. It was very difficult to explain in terms of an Earth-centered cosmology.