Field experimental validation of a shearing interference detection system for enhancing daytime detection capability in ground-based telescopes

The challenge of observing faint space objects during daytime has long hindered the full-time utilization of ground-based telescopes. Interference detection technology serves as a novel approach for suppressing skylight background noise, which can be employed either independently to mitigate skylight background or combined with conventional methods to achieve enhanced suppression capabilities. This study focuses on the observational performance of an interference detection system for actual faint space targets in daylight conditions. Through observations of three stellar targets (Arcturus, Vega, and Polaris) during sunset, we present, to our knowledge, the first demonstration of daytime stellar detection using an interference detection system. By comparing observational results between the shearing interference detection system and the conventional detection system for these stellar targets, this work reveals that the shearing interference method significantly outperforms traditional approaches-both in terms of visual image quality and target signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Specifically, the shearing interference system achieved SNRs of 15.4 for Arcturus, 23.3 for Vega, and 23.3 for Polaris, whereas conventional methods attained maximum SNRs of only 5.0 (Arcturus), 10.7 (Vega), and 3.8 (Polaris).