Save a massive FITS file

massive_fits.py

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
"""
Created on Tue Nov 13 15:05:36 2012

@author: stuart

Problem from SunPy mailing list. Save a MASSIVE array to a fits file
"""
import numpy as np
import numpy.lib as nplib

from glob import glob

import pyfits

save_dir = '/data/AIA/2010_05_29/'

files = glob(save_dir+"*fits")[:50]

n = len(files)

save_tmp = nplib.format.open_memmap(save_dir+"massive file.npy", mode='w+',
                                       shape=(n,4096,4096))

for i,fname in enumerate(files):
    print i
    fits = pyfits.open(fname)
    save_tmp[i] = fits[1].data
    fits.close()
    
    
print "saving"
hdu = pyfits.PrimaryHDU()

hdu.writeto('new.fits')

print "here we go"
pyfits.append('new.fits',save_tmp)