Thermal blooming compensation with adaptive optics

A multidither adaptive optical system has been used to correct for thermal blooming distortions. Stable correction factors of from 1.3 to 4 have been observed. Turbulence correction in the presence of blooming has also been observed. It is suggested that the geometry of the blooming scenario (location of absorption region, slue rate, etc.) and the parameters of the adaptive system (bandwidth, correction algorithm, etc.) can strongly affect the observed correction factor.