The invention discloses a lighting system and method used for dark field detection of a defect in a spherical optical element surface. The lighting system comprises a spherical light source, a light source support, an optical element to be detected, an optical element multidimensional holding device, a microscopic imaging system, a charge coupling element, a computer and a motor, wherein the spherical light source comprises a uniform face light source and a zoom lens group lens barrel, a plurality of spherical light sources are circlewise arranged on the light source support at equal intervals, a zoom adjusting component comprises a zoom lens group lens barrel, a front lens fixing group, a zoom lens group, a back lens fixing group, a zoom lens barrel, a gear and a sliding rail; the optical element to be detected and the holding device are arranged below the light source support, the microscopic imaging system and the charge coupling element are arranged above the light source support, and the light axis of the microscopic imaging system, the circle centre of a circular surface formed by a plurality of light sources, and the sphere centre of the optical element to be detected are coaxial. According to the dark field lighting for defect detection in the spherical optical element surface, an imaging is a bright defect image in the dark background, the contrast ratio is good, thus being easy for subsequent image processing.