Healpix doc (nasa-gcn#2498)

Resolves: nasa-gcn#2035

app/routes/docs.client.samples.md

@@ -12,6 +12,9 @@ and some samples from the FAQs section of the [gcn-kafka-python](https://github.
 
 To contribute your own ideas, make a GitHub pull request to add it to [the Markdown source for this document](https://github.com/nasa-gcn/gcn.nasa.gov/blob/CodeSamples/app/routes/docs.client.samples.md), or [contact us](/contact).
 
+- [Working with Kafka messages](#parsing)
+- [HEALPix Sky Maps](#healpix-sky-maps)
+
 ## Parsing
 
 Within your consumer loop, use the following functions to convert the
@@ -162,3 +165,178 @@ for message in consumer.consume(end[0].offset - start[0].offset, timeout=1):
             continue
     print(message.value())
 ```
+
+## HEALPix Sky Maps
+
+[HEALPix](https://healpix.sourceforge.io) (<b>H</b>ierarchical, <b>E</b>qual <b>A</b>rea, and iso-<b>L</b>atitude <b>Pix</b>elisation) is a scheme for indexing positions on the unit sphere.
+For localization of events, the multi-messenger community uses the standard HEALPix [@2005ApJ...622..759G] with the file extension `.fits.gz`, as well as multi-resolution HEALPix [@2015A&A...578A.114F] with the file extension `.multiorder.fits`. The preferred format is the multi-resolution HEALPix format.
+
+### Multi-Order Sky Maps
+
+GCN strongly encourages the use of multi-order sky maps. They utilize a variable resolution, with higher probability regions having higher resolution and lower probability regions being encoded with a lower resolution. Variable resolution allows multi-order sky maps to be significantly more efficient than single-resolution HEALPix sky maps with respect to both storage footprint and read speed.
+
+#### Reading Sky Maps
+
+Sky maps can be parsed using Python and a small number of packages. While this documentation covers the use of `astropy-healpix`, there are several packages that can be used for this purpose; a number of [alternatives](#other-documentation-and-healpix-packages) are listed at the bottom of this page.
+
+```python
+import astropy_healpix as ah
+import numpy as np
+
+from astropy import units as u
+from astropy.table import QTable
+```
+
+A given sky map can then be read in as:
+
+```python
+skymap = QTable.read('skymap.multiorder.fits')
+```
+
+#### Most Probable Sky Location
+
+Let's calculate the index of the sky point with the highest probability density, as follows:
+
+```python
+hp_index = np.argmax(skymap['PROBDENSITY'])
+uniq = skymap[hp_index]['UNIQ']
+
+level, ipix = ah.uniq_to_level_ipix(uniq)
+nside = ah.level_to_nside(level)
+
+ra, dec = ah.healpix_to_lonlat(ipix, nside, order='nested')
+```
+
+#### Probability Density at a Known Position
+
+Similarly, one can calculate the probability density at a known position:
+
+```python
+ra, dec = 197.450341598 * u.deg, -23.3814675445 * u.deg
+
+level, ipix = ah.uniq_to_level_ipix(skymap['UNIQ'])
+nside = ah.level_to_nside(level)
+
+match_ipix = ah.lonlat_to_healpix(ra, dec, nside, order='nested')
+
+match_index = np.flatnonzero(ipix == match_ipix)[0]
+
+prob_density = skymap[match_index]['PROBDENSITY'].to_value(u.deg**-2)
+```
+
+#### 90% Probability Region
+
+The estimation of a 90% probability region involves sorting the pixels, calculating the area of each pixel, and then summing the probability of each pixel until 90% is reached.
+
+```python
+#Sort the pixels by decending probability density
+skymap.sort('PROBDENSITY', reverse=True)
+
+#Area of each pixel
+level, ipix = ah.uniq_to_level_ipix(skymap['UNIQ'])
+pixel_area = ah.nside_to_pixel_area(ah.level_to_nside(level))
+
+#Pixel area times the probability
+prob = pixel_area * skymap['PROBDENSITY']
+
+#Cummulative sum of probability
+cumprob = np.cumsum(prob)
+
+#Pixels for which cummulative is 0.9
+i = cumprob.searchsorted(0.9)
+
+#Sum of the areas of the pixels up to that one
+area_90 = pixel_area[:i].sum()
+area_90.to_value(u.deg**2)
+```
+
+### Flat Resolution HEALPix Sky maps
+
+A sky map `.fits.gz` file can be read in using `healpy`:
+
+```python
+import healpy as hp
+import numpy as np
+from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
+
+# Read both the HEALPix image data and the FITS header
+hpx, header = hp.read_map('skymap.fits.gz', h=True)
+
+# Plot a Mollweide-projection all-sky image
+np.mollview(hpx)
+plt.show()
+```
+
+#### Most Probable Sky Location
+
+The point on the sky with the highest probability can be found by finding the maximum value in the HEALPix sky map:
+
+```python
+# Reading Sky Maps with Healpy
+healpix_image = hp.read_map('bayestar.fits.gz,0')
+npix = len(hpx)
+
+# Lateral resolution of the HEALPix map
+nside = hp.npix2nside(npix)
+
+# Find the highest probability pixel
+ipix_max = np.argmax(hpx)
+
+# Probability density per square degree at that position
+hpx[ipix_max] / hp.nside2pixarea(nside, degrees=True)
+
+# Highest probability pixel on the sky
+ra, dec = hp.pix2ang(nside, ipix_max, lonlat=True)
+ra, dec
+```
+
+#### Integrated probability in a Circle
+
+We can calculate the integrated probability within an arbitrary circle on the sky:
+
+```python
+# First define the Cartesian coordinates of the center of the circle
+ra = 180.0
+dec = -45.0
+radius = 2.5
+
+# Calculate Cartesian coordinates of the center of the Circle
+xyz = hp.ang2vec(ra, dec, lonlat=True)
+
+# Obtain an array of indices for the pixels inside the circle
+ipix_disc = hp.query_disc(nside, xyz, np.deg2rad(radius))
+
+# Sum the probability in all of the matching pixels:
+hpx[ipix_disc].sum()
+```
+
+#### Integrated probability in a Polygon
+
+Similar to the integrated probability within a circle, it is possible to calculate the integrated probability of the source lying within an arbitrary polygon:
+
+```python
+#  Indices of the pixels within a polygon (defined by the Cartesian coordinates of its vertices)
+
+xyz = [[0, 0, 0],
+       [1, 0, 0],
+       [1, 1, 0],
+       [0, 1, 0]]
+ipix_poly = hp.query_polygon(nside, xyz)
+hpx[ipix_poly].sum()
+```
+
+#### Other Documentation and HEALPix Packages
+
+For more information and resources on the analysis of pixelated data on a sphere, explore the following links:
+
+- Additional information can be found on the [LIGO website](https://emfollow.docs.ligo.org/userguide/tutorial/multiorder_skymaps.html)
+
+- [healpy](https://healpy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/): Official Python library for handling the pixelated data on sphere
+
+- [astropy-healpix](https://pypi.org/project/astropy-healpix/): Integrates HEALPix with Astropy for data manipulation and analysis
+
+- [mhealpy](https://mhealpy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/): Object-oriented wrapper of healpy for handling the multi-resolution maps
+
+- [MOCpy](https://cds-astro.github.io/mocpy/): Python library allowing easy creation, parsing and manipulation of Multi-Order Coverage maps.
+
+## Bibilography

references.bib

@@ -12,3 +12,39 @@ @ARTICLE{1995Ap&SS.231..255A
        adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1995Ap&SS.231..255A},
       adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
 }
+
+@ARTICLE{2005ApJ...622..759G,
+       author = {{G{\'o}rski}, K.~M. and {Hivon}, E. and {Banday}, A.~J. and {Wandelt}, B.~D. and {Hansen}, F.~K. and {Reinecke}, M. and {Bartelmann}, M.},
+        title = "{HEALPix: A Framework for High-Resolution Discretization and Fast Analysis of Data Distributed on the Sphere}",
+      journal = {Astrophysical Journal},
+     keywords = {Cosmology: Cosmic Microwave Background, Cosmology: Observations, Methods: Statistical, Astrophysics},
+         year = 2005,
+        month = apr,
+       volume = {622},
+       number = {2},
+        pages = {759-771},
+          doi = {10.1086/427976},
+archivePrefix = {arXiv},
+       eprint = {astro-ph/0409513},
+ primaryClass = {astro-ph},
+       adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005ApJ...622..759G},
+      adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
+}
+
+@ARTICLE{2015A&A...578A.114F,
+       author = {{Fernique}, P. and {Allen}, M.~G. and {Boch}, T. and {Oberto}, A. and {Pineau}, F. -X. and {Durand}, D. and {Bot}, C. and {Cambr{\'e}sy}, L. and {Derriere}, S. and {Genova}, F. and {Bonnarel}, F.},
+        title = "{Hierarchical progressive surveys. Multi-resolution HEALPix data structures for astronomical images, catalogues, and 3-dimensional data cubes}",
+      journal = {Astronomy and Astrophysics},
+     keywords = {surveys, atlases, astronomical databases: miscellaneous, catalogs, virtual observatory tools, methods: statistical, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics},
+         year = 2015,
+        month = jun,
+       volume = {578},
+          eid = {A114},
+        pages = {A114},
+          doi = {10.1051/0004-6361/201526075},
+archivePrefix = {arXiv},
+       eprint = {1505.02291},
+ primaryClass = {astro-ph.IM},
+       adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015A&A...578A.114F},
+      adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
+}