Tux Machines

15 Best Free and Open Source Linux Astronomical Data Analysis Tools

Posted by Rianne Schestowitz on Jan 08, 2024

Professional astronomers spend far more of their time analyzing data and writing articles than actually observing celestial objects. Amateur astronomers are also keen to analyze the data they have collated. Software that can process and analyze images is therefore essential to astronomers. Fortunately, high performance scientific software has always been a strong area for Linux.

Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) is a digital file format used to store, transmit, and manipulate scientific and other images. FITS is the most commonly used digital file format in astronomy.

We give our highest recommendation to Astropy, CARTA and AstroImageJ. But there are lots of other great tools. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion here.

Read on