Glass inspection systems are provided for detecting particles and defects in or on a glass sheet or glass ribbon (2, 14). The system is mounted so that the surface (1) to be inspected is in the object plane of a reflective lens (10). The lens images a thin stripe area, long in the direction tangent to the lens circumference and short in the radial direction, onto a linescan camera (18). A line illuminator (12) can be mounted so that it illuminates the stripe area. To perform the inspection, the system is moved with respect to the glass in the direction perpendicular to the long axis of the stripe, either by moving the system over the glass or by moving the glass while the system is fixed. Image information is collected by the linescan camera during this motion and assembled into an image.