A large area (1.8 m by 1.8 m), uniform temperature, thermal target was used for characterization of phenomena that impact target contrast. The target board is equipped with several bar patterns. It has a unique design that uses a tilted oven surface making it lightweight with near perfect transition between the hot and cold portions of the bar patterns. The oven surface maintains a ±1 °C uniformity when heated to 10–20 °C above ambient temperature.