Photutils Astronomical Photometry
Detect sources and measure starlight — background, apertures, PSF fitting
- What
- Detect sources and measure starlight — background, apertures, PSF fitting
- Cost
- Free
- Needs
- Python with the photutils package installed (pip install photutils). No account or API key. You supply your own astronomical images.
- Install
- Copy the installer prompt below into your Muse — your agent does the rest.
Curated by Skill Harbor — a working guide to Photutils, the modern Astropy-coordinated package for extracting quantitative data from astronomical images: estimating and subtracting complex 2D sky backgrounds, detecting stars and galaxies (DAOStarFinder, IRAFStarFinder, segmentation), measuring brightness with circular/elliptical/rectangular apertures, fitting PSF models in crowded fields, computing precise centroids, and running isophotal analysis on galaxy shapes — with the core principles that make photometry trustworthy (background first, aperture vs. PSF trade-offs, units-aware WCS apertures). Discovered via skills.sh, listed here with credit to its creator by @tondevrel. Honest caveats: requires Python with photutils installed; assumes you have astronomical images to analyze (it replaces legacy tools like SExtractor/DAOPHOT, not your telescope); 46 installs on the catalog, but popularity is not a review. Skill Harbor never reviews the code, review it yourself before use. Not verified.
Version:
Install
Prerequisites: Python with the photutils package installed (pip install photutils). No account or API key. You supply your own astronomical images. Install "Photutils Astronomical Photometry" for me. A working guide to the Photutils package for astronomical image analysis: background estimation and subtraction, source detection, aperture photometry, PSF fitting, centroiding, and isophotal analysis. Repository: https://github.com/tondevrel/scientific-agent-skills 1. Fetch the SKILL.md file for the photutils skill (and any helper files) from the repository path into a temporary folder and summarize what it does in one or two sentences. 2. Safety check: review the SKILL.md and scripts for anything suspicious (unexpected network calls, shell commands, credential harvesting). This repo should contain zero secrets in code, credentials only via the secure vault, allowed hosts declared in the SKILL.md. Verify that holds here; STOP on any red flag and tell me. 3. Install it as a skill: copy SKILL.md and its helper files into the agent's skills directory, in a folder named "photutils". 4. Verify with no network calls: frontmatter valid, files in place. 5. Report what was installed, where, and what I still need to do myself (e.g. install photutils via pip if not already present, provide the images to analyze). GitHub is optional: if I have a GitHub account or the gh CLI, you may use it; otherwise public access is fine. Never require it unless it's in the prerequisites above. Rules: don't touch anything outside the temp folder and the install target. If anything looks off, stop and ask me.
Questions
How do I install a build?
Every product page includes a copy-paste install prompt. Paste it into your Muse and it sets the build up for you — no manual configuration.
Where does my money go?
Straight to the seller. Skill Harbor never processes payments: checkout happens on the seller’s own page, usually Stripe.
What does the ✓ next to a creator’s name mean?
It means we confirmed the identity of the person behind the listing. It says nothing about the code itself — always check a build before installing it.