Overview
========

Introduction
------------

Photutils contains tools for:

* performing aperture photometry

* performing PSF-fitting photometry

* detecting and extracting point-like sources (e.g., stars) in
  astronomical images

* detecting and extracting extended sources using image segmentation
  in astronomical images

* estimating the background and background RMS in astronomical images

* centroiding sources

* creating radial profiles and curves of growth

* building an effective Point Spread Function (ePSF)

* matching PSF kernels

* estimating morphological parameters of detected sources

* estimating the limiting depths of images

* fitting elliptical isophotes to galaxies

* creating simulated astronomical images

The code and issue tracker are available at the following links:

* Code: https://github.com/astropy/photutils
* Issue Tracker: https://github.com/astropy/photutils/issues

Like much astronomy software, Photutils is an evolving package. The
developers try to maintain backwards compatibility, but at times the
API may change if there is a benefit to doing so. If there are specific
areas you think API stability is important, please let us know as part
of the development process.
