GNU Astronomy Utilities

The GNU Astronomy Utilities (Gnuastro) is an official GNU package consisting of separate programs for the manipulation and analysis of astronomical data. All the various utilities share the same basic command line user interface for the comfort of both the users and developers. GNU Astronomy Utilities is written to comply fully with the GNU coding standards so it integrates finely with the GNU/Linux operating system. This also enables astronomers to expect a fully familiar experience in the source code, building, installing and command line user interaction that they have seen in all the other GNU software that they use.

For starters

In case you are new to Gnuastro, you might find these links useful:

Quick start: To install Gnuastro.
List of GNU Astronomy Utilities: For a complete list of utilities.
Tutorials: for entertaining and easy to read real world examples of using Gnuastro.

Downloading GNU Astronomy Utilities

We are working hard on the first tarball release as soon as possible. To be informed when it is released (and keep up to date with all future Gnuastro announcements), please subscribe to info-gnuastro. The documentation (manual) is ready and available.

Please see Dependencies and Downloading the source for a full discussion on the dependencies and various download methods. In short the three mandatory dependencies are CFITSIO, WCSLIB, and the GNU Scientific Library. Gnuastro's source can be downloaded in any of the three ways below (from most stable to most recent or cutting edge):

(Not yet available) Stable and offical release tarballs can be downloaded from at http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/ (via HTTP), or ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/ (via FTP). Use a mirror if possible.
(Not yet available) Pre-release (for beta-testing) tarballs are available at http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/ (via HTTP), or ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/ (via FTP).
Clone Gnuastro's Git repository with the following command:
git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/gnuastro.git
See Version controlled source for a complete discussion. Instructions on Bootstrapping (along with the Bootstrapping dependencies) and keeping your clone synchronized, are also given in the same section of the official Gnuastro book (documentation).

Documentation

Documentation (manual) for Gnuastro is available online in various formats, as is documentation for most GNU software. After installing Gnuastro, you can access the documentation for the full package or individual programs on the command line, in Info format, by running any of the top three commands below for varying levels of generality (the name in the top three is not case sensitive):

info gnuastro: To view the complete GNU Astronomy Utilities manual.
info ProgramName: To view the complete section about ProgramName. For example info NoiseChisel or info ImageCrop.
info astprogname: To only view the "Invoking ProgramName" sub-section of the manual. Each program has this subsection which explains the input(s), output(s) and command line options for that particular program. For example info astnoisechisel or info astimgcrop.
astprogname --help: A description and full list of options (classified by context) for this program will be printed.
man astprogname: A man page listing the options and arguments of this program.

Mailing lists

Gnuastro has the following mailing lists:

info-gnuastro: All official Gnuastro announcements will be circulated through this mailing list.
help-gnuastro: Get in touch with experienced Gnuastro users and developers on problems and advice in using Gnuastro (it will help if you have had a look at the documentation first).
bug-gnuastro: Report a bug, or suggest a new feature (see Report a bug and Suggest new feature in the documentation).
gnuastro-devel: Circulating development discussions (mainly interesting for Gnuastro developers).
gnuastro-commits: Circulate commits made to Gnuastro's version controlled history in the official repository.

Security reports that should not be made immediately public can be sent directly to the maintainer. If there is no response to an urgent issue, you can escalate to the general security mailing list for advice.

Getting involved

The most important principle behind Gnuastro is to be easy for anyone to hack into it (add a new feature, change an existing one, fix a problem and most importantly to understand what is going on under the hood), please see Science and its tools. So you are most welcome and highly incouraged to contribute. There is even a full chapter dedicated to Developing to make it as easy as possible for you to get involved. Also see How to help GNU for joining the full GNU project.

Test releases: Trying the latest test release (when available) is always appreciated. Test releases of Gnuastro can be found at http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/ (via HTTP) and ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/ (via FTP).
Development: GNU Astronomy Utilities is still under active development. So if you are interested, please have a look at the Developing chapter of the documentation and start hacking into Gnuastro or even write your own utility within it. If you feel you want to share your work as an official section of Gnuastro, please contact the maintainer (below). For development sources, bug trackers, task trackers (planned features to be added), and other information, please see the Gnuastro project page at savannah.gnu.org. The trackers can be a good starting point if you want to get involved in the coding. To stay up to date with Gnuastro's development activities, please subscribe to the gnuastro-devel, and/or the gnuastro-commits mailing lists.
Maintainer: GNU Astronomy Utilities is created and maintained by Mohammad Akhlaghi <akhlaghi::at::gnu.org>. Please use the mailing lists for contact.

Licensing

GNU Astronomy Utilities (Gnuastro) is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.