How can I mine from two asteroids at once?

Question

I have got myself a Venture mining ship with a pair of mining lasers on it, and have seen others mining from multiple targets at once but can't seem to work out how I'm meant to do this myself.

When I target the first asteroid and use a mining laser, this will start mining from the targeted asteroid.

If I then target the second asteroid and use the second mining laser, this laser begins to mine from the originally targeted asteroid (which already has a laser mining it).

How can I mine from two asteroids at once?

Answer 1

What is probably going on is you are clicking the second asteroid in your overview, bringing it to your selected item menu. This is a bit confusing, but that does not make it your "primary target".

In your targeted items area you can see that your first asteroid has arrows circling around it. That indicates it is your primary target. All module activation will be used against that target. To change active targets click on the targeting information of the different asteroid. The arrows should switch to the secondary target.

The reason this exist is so that you can have an active target (for orbiting, aligning, warping, etc), while still maintaining your active target for combat.

Answer 2

Select the second asteroid in your target list via left mouse click on the target portrait.