One of the most common ways to operate Gnuastro is through its command-line programs. For some tutorials on several real-world usage scenarios, see Tutorials. The list here is just provided as a general summary for those who are new to Gnuastro.
GNU Astronomy Utilities 0.23, contains the following programs. They are sorted in alphabetical order and a short description is provided for each program. The description starts with the executable names in thisfont followed by a pointer to the respective section in parenthesis. Throughout this book, they are ordered based on their context, please see the top-level contents for contextual ordering (based on what they do).
(astarithmetic, see Arithmetic) For arithmetic operations on multiple (theoretically unlimited) number of datasets (images).
It has a large and growing set of arithmetic, mathematical, and even statistical operators (for example, +, -, *, /, sqrt, log, min, average, median, see Arithmetic operators).
(astbuildprog, see BuildProgram) Compile, link and run custom C programs that depend on the Gnuastro library (see Gnuastro library). This program will automatically link with the libraries that Gnuastro depends on, so there is no need to explicitly mention them every time you are compiling a Gnuastro library dependent program.
(astconvertt, see ConvertType) Convert astronomical data files (FITS or IMH) to and from several other standard image and data formats, for example, TXT, JPEG, EPS or PDF. Optionally, it is also possible to add vector graphics markers over the output image (for example, circles from catalogs containing RA or Dec).
(astconvolve, see Convolve) Convolve (blur or smooth) data with a given kernel in spatial and frequency domain on multiple threads. Convolve can also do deconvolution to find the appropriate kernel to PSF-match two images.
(astcosmiccal, see CosmicCalculator) Do cosmological calculations, for example, the luminosity distance, distance modulus, comoving volume and many more.
(astcrop, see Crop) Crop region(s) from one or many image(s) and stitch several images if necessary. Input coordinates can be in pixel coordinates or world coordinates.
(astfits, see Fits) View and manipulate FITS file extensions and header keywords.
(astmkcatalog, see MakeCatalog) Make catalog of labeled image (output of NoiseChisel). The catalogs are highly customizable and adding new calculations/columns is very straightforward, see Akhlaghi 2019.
(astmkprof, see MakeProfiles) Make mock 2D profiles in an image. The central regions of radial profiles are made with a configurable 2D Monte Carlo integration. It can also build the profiles on an over-sampled image.
(astmatch, see Match) Given two input catalogs, find the rows that match with each other within a given aperture (may be an ellipse).
(astnoisechisel, see NoiseChisel) Detect signal in noise. It uses a technique to detect very faint and diffuse, irregularly shaped signal in noise (galaxies in the sky), using thresholds that are below the Sky value, see Akhlaghi and Ichikawa 2015 and Akhlaghi 2019.
(astquery, see Query) High-level interface to query pre-defined remote, or external databases, and directly download the required sub-tables on the command-line.
(astsegment, see Segment) Segment detected regions based on the structure of signal and the input dataset’s noise properties.
(aststatistics, see Statistics) Statistical calculations on the input dataset (column in a table, image or data cube). This includes man operations such as generating histogram, sigma clipping, and least squares fitting.
(asttable, Table) Convert FITS binary and ASCII tables into other such tables, print them on the command-line, save them in a plain text file, do arithmetic on the columns or get the FITS table information. For a full list of operations, see Operation precedence in Table.
(astwarp, see Warp) Warp image to new pixel grid. By default it will align the pixel and WCS coordinates, removing any non-linear WCS distortions. Any linear warp (projective transformation or Homography) can also be applied to the input images by explicitly calling the respective operation.
The programs listed above are designed to be highly modular and generic.
Hence, they are naturally for lower-level operations.
In Gnuastro, higher-level operations (combining multiple programs, or running a program in a special way), are done with installed Bash scripts (all prefixed with astscript-).
They can be run just like a program and behave very similarly (with minor differences, see Installed scripts).
astscript-ds9-region(See SAO DS9 region files from table) Given a table (either as a file or from standard input), create an SAO DS9 region file from the requested positional columns (WCS or image coordinates).
astscript-fits-view(see Viewing FITS file contents with DS9 or TOPCAT) Given any number of FITS files, this script will either open SAO DS9 (for images or cubes) or TOPCAT (for tables) to view them in a graphic user interface (GUI).
astscript-pointing-simulate(See Pointing pattern simulation) Given a table of pointings on the sky, create and a reference image that contains your camera’s distortions and properties, generate a stacked exposure map. This is very useful in testing the coverage of dither patterns when designing your observing strategy and it is highly customizable. See Akhlaghi 2023, or the dedicated tutorial in Pointing pattern design.
astscript-radial-profile(See Generate radial profile) Calculate the 1D radial profile or 2D polar plot of an object within an image. The object can be at any location in the image, using various measures (median, sigma-clipped mean, etc.), and the radial distance can also be measured on any general ellipse. See Infante-Sainz et al. 2024 and/or Eskandarlou and Akhlaghi 2024.
astscript-color-faint-gray(see Color images with gray faint regions) Given three images for the Red-Green-Blue (RGB) channels, this script will use the bright pixels for color and will show the faint/diffuse regions in grayscale. This greatly helps in visualizing the full dynamic range of astronomical data. See Infante-Sainz et al. 2024 or a dedicated tutorial in Color images with full dynamic range.
astscript-sort-by-night(See Sort FITS files by night) Given a list of FITS files, and a HDU and keyword name (for a date), this script separates the files in the same night (possibly over two calendar days).
astscript-zeropoint(see Zero point estimation) Estimate the zero point (to calibrate pixel values) of an input image using a reference image or a reference catalog. This is necessary to produce measurements with physical units from new images. See Eskandarlou et al. 2023, or a dedicated tutorial in Zero point of an image.
astscript-psf-*The following scripts are used to estimate the extended PSF estimation and subtraction as described in the tutorial Building the extended PSF:
astscript-psf-select-stars(see Invoking astscript-psf-select-stars) Find all the stars within an image that are suitable for constructing an extended PSF. If the image has WCS, this script can automatically query Gaia to find the good stars.
astscript-psf-stamp(see Invoking astscript-psf-stamp) build a crop (stamp) of a certain width around a star at a certain coordinate in a larger image. This script will do sub-pixel re-positioning to make sure the star is centered and can optionally mask all other background sources).
astscript-psf-scale-factor(see Invoking astscript-psf-scale-factor) Given a PSF model, and the central coordinates of a star in an image, find the scale factor that has to be multiplied by the PSF to scale it to that star.
astscript-psf-unite(see Invoking astscript-psf-unite) Unite the various components of a PSF into one. Because of saturation and non-linearity, to get a good estimate of the extended PSF, it is necessary to construct various parts from different magnitude ranges.
astscript-psf-subtract(see Invoking astscript-psf-subtract) Given the model of a PSF and the central coordinates of a star in the image, do sub-pixel re-positioning of the PSF, scale it to the star and subtract it from the image.
GNU Astronomy Utilities 0.23 manual, July 2024.