GNU Astronomy Utilities, commonly known as Gnuastro, is a collection of command-line programs and libraries for manipulating and analysing astronomical data.
The individual programs share a consistent command-line interface, making it easier to combine multiple operations into larger processing pipelines. Gnuastro works extensively with FITS data and provides facilities for examining and modifying FITS extensions and headers, converting data between formats, cropping images, manipulating tables, performing arithmetic and statistical operations, matching catalogues and processing astronomical images.
One of its better-known components is NoiseChisel, which detects faint and diffuse structures embedded in noise without relying on the conventional approach of detecting objects above a fixed signal-to-noise threshold. MakeCatalog can subsequently calculate measurements from labelled images. Other components perform convolution, image warping, cosmological calculations and profile generation.
Gnuastro is not restricted to its supplied executables. It includes a library for developing custom astronomical software, while BuildProgram simplifies compiling programs against Gnuastro and its dependencies.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Manipulate and analyse astronomical datasets from the command line.
- View and modify FITS extensions and header keywords.
- Detect faint and diffuse structures with NoiseChisel.
- Generate catalogues from labelled astronomical images.
- Crop, convolve, warp and convert image data.
- Table processing, statistics and arithmetic operations.
- Library for developing custom astronomical programs.
Website: gnu.org/software/gnuastro
Support:
Developer: Mohammad Akhlaghi
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
Gnuastro is written primarily in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Astronomical Data Analysis Tools | |
|---|---|
| Astropy | Collection of Python software packages for astronomy |
| CARTA | Cube Analysis and Rendering Tool for Astronomy |
| AstroImageJ | Powerful tool for astronomical image analysis and precise photometry |
| TOPCAT | Tool for OPerations on Catalogues And Tables |
| astroML | Python module for machine learning and data mining |
| DS9 | Astronomical imaging and data visualization application |
| Siril | Astronomical image (pre-)processing software |
| Skyfield | Pure-Python astronomy package |
| Sherpa | Modeling and fitting application for Python |
| IRAF | Image Reduction and Analysis Facility |
| PyRAF | Python-based IRAF command language |
| THELI | Tool for the automated reduction of astronomical images |
| ASTAP | Astrometric STAcking Program |
| ORSA | Framework for celestial mechanics investigations |
| CRUSH | Data reduction and imaging for select astronomical cameras |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.