The 1 dimensional radial profile of an object is an important parameter in many aspects of astronomical image processing. For example, you want to study how the light of a galaxy is distributed as a function of the radial distance from the center. In other cases, the radial profile of a star can show the PSF (see Point spread function). Gnuastro’s astscript-radial-profile script is created to obtain such radial profiles for one object within an image. This script uses MakeProfiles to generate elliptical apertures with the values equal to the distance from the center of the object and MakeCatalog for measuring the values over the apertures.
GNU Astronomy Utilities 0.23 manual, July 2024.