Two pictures from the upgraded Hubble Space Telescope: the Butterfly Nebula (top) and globular cluster Omega Centauri (detail, bottom).

Here at the Space Telescope Science Institute we are recovering from a whirlwind summer commissioning the new and repaired instruments on Hubble. Our public unveiling last Wednesday was a rocking success, judging from the reactions: the Internet was abuzz with comments, and tens of millions of you were hungry to see the images and get your hands on them. The network here at the Institute was considerably slower than normal on Wednesday and Thursday ¡ª not that we minded, as we all knew the reason why!

You might be thinking that we wizened astronomers are used to seeing such amazing images all the time, and are jaded by this awesome display of Hubble¡¯s power. It¡¯s not true, though. The auditorium here was packed with people eager to watch the press conference and see the results of our hard work, and almost everyone was seeing these results for the first time. I¡¯m on the team that handles one of Hubble¡¯s new instruments, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), and even I hadn¡¯t seen the results beforehand.  It was amazing to see the images of the butterfly nebula, and the dramatic reds and blues of the star cluster Omega Centauri.

The targets for these early release observations were chosen not just for the stunning presentations they make at press conferences, but for the legitimate science that can be done with the data. And so it was fitting that at our Friday morning coffee last week, only two days after the press release, we scientists were eager to discuss some of the first papers that had already been submitted on the science from Hubble¡¯s new instruments.  These papers detailed discoveries of some of the youngest known galaxies, which would not have been visible without Hubble¡¯s new instruments. Discovery of these young galaxies will now become routine, as the search turns to even younger galaxies.

The process of adjusting Hubble, called Servicing Mission Orbital Verification (SMOV) has not finished yet; some remaining calibration and confirmation data remains to be taken. The emphasis now is on routine operation of Hubble¡¯s instruments for astronomers who have been waiting for their long-promised observations.

The tedious process of documenting all the activities that took place over the summer is also ongoing, but it¡¯s nice to be able to reflect on the summer with a smile on my face and a few new images for my computer background, knowing that Hubble has a new lease on life and is going as strong ¡ª if not stronger ¡ª than ever.