Empire Tree Zooming Trouble

I am having a problem I never had before with regards to the empire tree where when I click on either the fleet symbol or a ship icon in a fleet on the empire tree I keep zooming to the planet/asteriod the fleet is at and it's making microing rather difficult.  For example:

I have a fleet that entered the pirate system.  My lead capital ship is taking a pounding (say a marza) and I want to use the shield resore ability of the Durnov.

Before: 

1) I find the fleet icon on the empire tree and expand it

2) I select the Durnov via the empire tree and select the shield restore ability

3) I use the selected ability by clicking on the marza icon on the empire tree

4) Rejoice

Now:

1) I find the fleet icon on the empire tree and expand it

2) The empire tree zooms to the pirate base

3) I scroll back up to the expanded fleet

4) I select the Durnov via the empire tree and select the shield restore ability

5) The empire tree zooms to the pirate base again

6) I scroll back up to the fleet and find that the marza's shield is long gone

7) Curse out loud

I don't remember this ever happening before and I'm not sure if I toggled something without knowing.  I'm playing vanilla SIN v1.12.  I would really appreciate any help!

p.s.  I am aware that I can expand the planet where the fleet is at and micro from there, but that simply leads to too much information (like 50 pirate ships + 40 fighter squadrons + all the turrets) and confusing if you have more than one fleet in the system.