A target detection method for detecting targets on the ground and in motion, in a video stream that is acquired by an airborne digital camera, which includes the steps of: processing a plurality of successive frames in the video frame in a manner so as to stabilize the frames as if they had been acquired by a fixed camera; and comparing two processed frames, temporally separated from the other, so as to identify the zones of pixels in motion from one processed frame to the other, one zone of pixels in motion constituting a detected target.