Abstract : A 40 cm telescope with an intensified CCD detector and video recording was used to detect space-debris objects. Participation in the ODERACS experiment showed that objects as small as 5 cm could be detected with this size telescope. Image analysis techniques were tested to enhance the low S/N debris streaks in the recorded video signals, and the Hough transform was selected as the best technique. A hardware implementation of this transform was carried out using DSP chips, and it was demonstrated that real time processing should be achievable with parallel processing with five DSP chips. Finally, an analysis was undertaken to use a known debris population distribution to project the population into the future so as to predict debris detection rates from a particular ground observation site. It was concluded that seasonal effects will compromise the usefulness of debris observations from a particular site as an indicator of any systematic changes in the debris population.