Can you catch orbital debris? (without targeting)

[PTNLemay]

I feel like I'm trying to do the impossible (or maybe I'm just really bad at this game).

I saw a piece of debris drifting around 40 Km off the side of my space station and I decided to build a rocket specially designed to de-orbit it. I had seen KSP YouTubers do similar contraptions with a cradle on the rocket's nose so I figured, how hard can it be? (SO HARD!) I can't seem to target the piece of debris, so I can't tell what my heading is relative to it's. I made it around 1.0 kilometer away before I just start to... loop around it endlessly. I know I'm overshooting but I can't tell in which direction I'm doing the overshooting. I've run out of fuel and resorted to infini-fuel cheat, and I still can't get the little bugger! Closer than 150 m the indicator just vanishes, and at that point I'm completely lost. I'm not sure what I'm asking in this thread (maybe just a shoulder to cry on...) I guess I'd like to know if anyone has any tips for doing this? Or just share your stories of how many pieces of debris you've caught thanks to your elite KSP skillz.

This is my de-orbiter.

And this is me, trying to catch a mouse with a bulldozer.

Edited August 16, 2013 by PTNLemay

[TheDarkStar]

If you click the speed indicator, it toggles between ground-, orbited object-, and target-relative. Set it to the last option so you can see your relative speed and heading. Note that you will have to set it as a target, which you either do by clicking its orbit in map view (and then clicking "set as target") or by double-clicking on the marker when you can see it. Also, you can see the distance from any other ship (or piece of debris) by mousing over the core part.

[PTNLemay]

...

And here I thought I was going to get a long list of anecdotes telling me "I know! It's hard, but you can get it with practice, here's how I go about it." But no, I just didn't realize you can target it super easily. Oh well, another day, another tid-bit of KSP widom. Thanks a bunch.

[Specialist290]

Another little tip: If you move your mouse up to the top of the screen in Map view, a menu will drop down allowing you to filter which craft stay in view by category. You can either left-click to select only that category, or right-click to toggle it on and off. Debris is one of the available categories, and it's normally toggled off by default.

Thus, even if the debris isn't visible in the normal view, you can still target it and plan a rendezvous as normal.

[Apollo13]

May wish to try KAS (Kerbal Attachment System). Grab the errant part and drag it back into the atmosphere.