Create a high resolution image of the Planck CMB map

planckhighresmap.py

# Script by Andrea Zonca, http://zonca.github.io

import matplotlib
matplotlib.use("agg")
import healpy as hp
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

use_planck_cmap = True
# Colormap available from https://github.com/zonca/paperplots/raw/master/data/Planck_Parchment_RGB.txt
# Maps available at: http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/data/Planck/release_1/all-sky-maps/
input_filename = "COM_CompMap_CMB-smica_2048_R1.20.fits"
m=hp.read_map(input_filename, ("INP_CMB",))

cmap = None
out_filename = input_filename.split(".")[0]
if use_planck_cmap:
    ############### CMB colormap
    from matplotlib.colors import ListedColormap
    import numpy as np
    colombi1_cmap = ListedColormap(np.loadtxt("Planck_Parchment_RGB.txt")/255.)
    colombi1_cmap.set_bad("gray") # color of missing pixels
    colombi1_cmap.set_under("white") # color of background, necessary if you want to use
    # this colormap directly with hp.mollview(m, cmap=colombi1_cmap)
    cmap = colombi1_cmap
    out_filename += "_planck_cmap"

dpi = 300
figsize_inch = 60, 40
fig = plt.figure(figsize=figsize_inch, dpi=dpi)

print "Mollview"
# removed the colorbar, the map range is -500 / +500 microK
hp.mollview(m, fig=fig.number, xsize=figsize_inch[0]*dpi, min=-500, max=500, title="", cbar=False, cmap=cmap)

print "Save"
plt.savefig(out_filename + ".png", dpi=dpi, bbox_inches="tight")

Blog post:
http://zonca.github.io/2013/09/Planck-CMB-map-at-high-resolution.html