moving the visual around a vehicle

[king of nowhere]

when you are in the VAB you can move your visual around freely, but when you are flying your visual is always centered on the vehicle center of mass. you can move around as much as you want, but you are always centered on the center of mass.

recently this has become a concern. i have a craft with robotic parts that i need to control accurately, but they are at the end of a longer ship, and so i can never zoom on them. i only view them very tiny at the bottom of the screen. i can't even move the camera to have them at the forefront, because they are to be used when the ship is landed (basically, it involves opening the cargo bay and unloading a rover after the rocket is landed) and so moving the camera closer to the parts would put it below ground.

is there any way to free the camera and get something akin to the VAB freedome of view?

[Vanamonde]

Hold the center mouse button or wheel while panning. But it will switch back to COM every time you go to the map and back. Alternately, you can r-click on a part and choose to center the camera on it. 

[Entropian]

You also can open the PAW for a part and there should be a button for "Aim Camera," which will center your view on the part.