Lumps 'n' Bumps: Patrick Moore

Sir Patrick Moore passed away today, aged 89. Through his many, many books, and TV programmes like The Sky at Night, he became Britain’s foremost populariser of astronomy. It’s safe to say he’s inspired several generations of scientists, showing us the poignant beauty of the heavens and incredible excitement of space exploration, all in his own, unique way.

I have a particularly fond memory of him...

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Lumps 'n' Bumps: Healpix map2gif options

I'm doing a lot of work with CMB maps at the moment, most of which are pixelised using Healpix. It’s good to be able to visualise the maps, and the Healpix distribution comes with a utility to do just that: map2gif. Unfortunately, map2gif has somewhat sparse documentation – there are a few options that aren't documented and that sort of thing. I ended up poking through the source code to find some options, so I figured I should share them here to make other peoples’ lives a little easier.

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