A solar tracking system and method that use a tube that admits solar radiation and one or more photodetectors for generating a signal related to an intensity of solar radiation at a distal end of the tube. The system has a scan unit for periodically executing a certain scan pattern in an elevation angle El and in an azimuth angle Az of the shielding tube. A processing unit in communication with the photodetector determines an on-sun orientation of the shielding tube based on a convolution of the signal obtained while executing the scan pattern with a trained convolution kernel. The on-sun orientation thus found can be used to update the orientation of one or more solar surfaces, e.g., reflective or photovoltaic surfaces.