Welcome to the healpy documentation¶
healpy is a Python package to handle pixelated data on the sphere. It is based on the Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelization (HEALPix) scheme and bundles the HEALPix C++ library.
HEALPix was developed to efficiently process Cosmic Microwave Background data from Cosmology experiments like BOOMERANG and WMAP but it is now used in other branches of Astrophysics to store data from all-sky surveys. The target audience used to be primarily the Cosmology scientific community but currently anyone interested in handling pixelated data on the sphere is very welcome to propose new features.
healpy provides utilities to:
convert between sky coordinates and pixel indices in HEALPix nested and ring schemes
find pixels within a disk, a polygon or a strip in the sky
apply coordinate transformations between Galactic, Ecliptic and Equatorial reference frames
apply custom rotations either to vectors or full maps
read and write HEALPix maps to disk in FITS format
upgrade and downgrade the resolution of existing HEALPix maps
visualize maps in Mollweide, Gnomonic and Cartographic projections
transform maps to Spherical Harmonics space and back using multi-threaded C++ routines
compute Auto and Cross Power Spectra from maps and create map realizations from spectra