No, you don’t need a high-powered telescope. All that’s required is Internet access.

NASA is beginning a program to take suggestions from the public of what shots a powerful camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter should take of the surface of our solar-system neighbor.

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera on the Orbiter to date has recorded nearly 13,000 observations of the Red Planet's terrain. Each image covers dozens of square miles and reveals details as small as a desk. Now, anyone on Earth can nominate sites for pictures.

"The HiRISE team is pleased to give the public this opportunity to propose imaging targets and share the excitement of seeing your favorite spot on Mars at people-scale resolution," said Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the camera and a researcher at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

NASA anticipates that many people will be excited about virtually participating in this exploration of Mars, and that their suggestions will add to the accumulated knowledge of the planet. Even though thousands of pictures already have been taken, less than 1 percent of the Martian surface has been digitally captured.

Students, researchers and others can view Mars maps using a new online tool to see where images have been taken, check which targets have already been suggested, and suggest new shots. "The process is fairly simple," said Guy McArthur, systems programmer on the HiRISE team at the University of Arizona. "With the tool, you can place your rectangle on Mars where you'd like."

McArthur developed the online tool, "HiWish," with Ross Beyer, principal investigator and research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

The HiRISE science team will evaluate the submissions and assign high priority to select ideas. Thousands of pending targets from scientists and the public will be imaged when the orbiter's track and other conditions are right.

HiRISE is one of six instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Launched in August 2005, the orbiter reached Mars the following year to begin a two-year primary science mission. The spacecraft has found that Mars has had diverse wet environments at many locations for differing durations in the planet's history, and Martian climate-change cycles persist into the present era. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is in an extended science phase and will continue to take several thousand images a year. The mission has returned more data about Mars than all other spacecraft combined.

"This opportunity opens up a new path to students and others to participate in ongoing exploration of Mars, said the mission's project scientist, Rich Zurek of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

To make camera suggestions, visit uahirise.org/suggest

More information about the MRO mission is at www.nasa.gov/mro