A system and method for tracking an airborne target including an illumination source (e.g., a diode laser array) is used to enhance a target signature and a detector (e.g., a passive high-speed camera) is used to detect to electromagnetic radiation (e.g., infrared radiation) reflected off the target. The received electromagnetic radiation may be processed by a digital computer and passed through a spatial filter that implements a band limited edge detection operation in the frequency domain. The filter may remove low spatial frequencies that attenuate soft edged clutter such as clouds and smoke as well as filter out artifacts and attenuated medium to high spatial frequencies to inhibit speckle noise from the detector as well as speckle from the laser return off the target.