This tool let you prepare a mosaic for your camera.
There is two way to open this tool:

• From the menu View, in this case the mosaic is centered on the screen center, corresponding with the last object search.
• From the right click popup menu, in this case the mosaic is centered on the mouse cursor position.

• You can adjust the coordinates of the mosaic center, or use the arrow to move the mosaic.
• The camera rotation can be adjusted to change the global mosaic orientation.
• Give a name to the mosaic, this is use as the default file name and prefix every row in the file.
• Select the Finder rectangle that correspond to your camera. It is better if your imaging software can plate-solve and send the frame to Skychart. This way you get the exact size and orientation automatically.
• Change the size of the mosaic as you want.
• Set the vertical and horizontal overlap in percent.

When ready click the Save button to record the mosaic definition to a file you can later load in your imaging software.

You can also send the mosaic via the server connection.

Below is a description of the format if you want to write your own software to process this mosaic.

The server message use the same format as a click to an object with fields separated by the <tab> character. The coordinates are in field 3 and 4, the object type in field 5 is “Frm”, the name of the frame is in field 6, the size in field 7 and the position angle in field 8. Use the command GETCHARTEQSYS to know the equinox of the coordinates.

> Chart_1 : 05h47m49s -02d42m13s Frm Orion_01 Dim: 114.76 x 86.76 ' pa: 30.00

The content of the file is the following:

EQUINOX=2458714.1
Orion_01 05h47m49s -02d42m13s 30.00 114.76 86.76
Orion_02 05h45m13s -03d49m51s 30.00 114.76 86.76
Orion_03 05h42m36s -04d57m28s 30.00 114.76 86.76

The first row contain the Julian day for the epoch of the coordinates. This can be the current date or J2000 depending on your coordinate setting.

Each following rows contain the following information separated by a single space:

• the mosaic name and a sequence number.
• the frame center right ascension.
• the frame center declination.
• the rotator position.
• the frame width in minute of arc
• the frame height in minute of arc