Firstly, can I say what an absolutely amazing piece of software you
have written, well done, and thank so much for sharing it with us.

I have a couple feature requests relating to imaging the Moon for
the next version of VMA.

Like many other people, I have started trying to capture mosaics of
the Moon.

http://annmarie.tamaris.org.uk/astronomy/a-lunar-mosaic-440
http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/lunar/2005-06-17-mosaic.jpg
http://geogdata.csun.edu/~voltaire/roland/m_mosaic.html
http://www.robertreeves.com/webcam.htm

Such mosiacs are typically made of anything between 10 and 40 images
captured on a Toucam Pro II webcam.

One of the problems I have is making sure that I don't miss small
parts of the Moon out (very easily done) or have inadequate overlap
to allow programs such a Panaorama Plus or Autostitch to
automatically stitch the mosaic together. I am also keen to
minimize the number of captures needed. Processing each AVI may
take up to 2 hours and I do not want to have to do these
unnecessarily.

So here are my feature requests.
1) There are user-defined eyepiece views of the Moon. Would it be
possible to have similar user-defined CCD/webcam views. These would
be different from how VMA handles eyepiece views. Rather than
zooming in and putting a circular mask around the view, The
CCD/webcam views would project a coloured lined rectangle on to the
existing Moon view in a similar way to Cartes du Ceil. This would
help with planning single feature imaging sessions.

2) There would be a Mosaic Planner feature that would allow the
user to define:
a) The relevent image size as in 1) above,
b) The amount of overlap between images (expressed as a percentage).

The software would then allow the user place any number of frames on
the Moon map. The desired overlap area could be indicated by a
shaded or hatched area inside the outer line of each rectangle. The
user could then place any number of these frames on the Moon map to
help them plan the mosiac. The program would automatically number
each frame, working either north to south, south to north, west to
east, east to west or combinations of these numbering systems,
depending upon the user's preference. The mosaic plans would be
saveable so that mosaics can be planned many nights in advance.
This system would make planning and executing Lunar mosaics very
much easier.

During an imaging session the user could simply bring up the mosaic
plan, compare the VMA view with that in the webcam and adjust the
webcam view to match that shown in the mosaic plan - the result,
perfectly executed mosaics.

Regards