The effect of image compensation in viewing extended targets through thermal blooming is discussed. A wave-optics propagation code simulating multiple point sources and a low-bandwidth return-wave adaptive optics system is used to determine the steady-state thermally induced phase distortions and wave-front correction through various Zernike modes. Incoherent point spread functions for the isoplanatic regions are generated and convolved with the appropriate object field to reconstruct the extended target image. Image distortion, degradation in peak irradiance, and adaptive optics loop stability are discussed with respect to degree of correction and wavelength sensitivity.

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