1. A wide area imaging system for performing surveillance of an area, comprising a sensor that uses a rotational step/dwell/image capture sequence to capture images of the area under surveillance, wherein the sensor provides image capture of a predetermined image field at a predetermined image capture rate, wherein the said rotational step and dwell motion is by closed-loop motion control, wherein the said step/dwell/image capture sequence is controlled by a processor to synchronize motion in a direction of rotation of the system and image capture to the image capture rate of the sensor, wherein the predetermined image field advances in the direction of rotation as the system rotates, and wherein the captured images are used to produce a wide-area image of the area under surveillance.