One of the bright stars of winter, Betelgeuse is back. Betelgeuse is a principle star in the zodiacal constellation Orion. Betelgeuse is high in the west after sunset.

Take a look in the western skies this weekend for Venus as it moves through the star cluster Pleiades.

There is a pretty sight in the southwestern sky tonight. A thin crescent moon appears under the brilliant planet Venus. The two are fairly close.

The sight isn’t that much different if you look tomorrow night, though the moon will be higher in the sky, above Venus.

The two are under the zodiacal constellation Taurus. The star cluster Pleiades, that small star cluster of stars in Taurus is nearby.

Tomorrow night the three form a triangle. The Pleiades is considerably fainter than the other two.

Atty. Ronald H. Rappaport saluted Island volunteers as the backbone of this community and an indispensable force that makes the Vineyard the special place it is.

In a spectacle described as incredible, amazing and historic, hundreds of Islanders turned out to hammer boards, paint window sills and raise the Martha's Vineyard Agricultural Society's new barn in a three-day event that was a festival of community spirit.

Danny Louis Larsen, 62, of Edgartown has reason to be surprised by his own success. When he started Edgartown Seafood 25 years ago, Mr. Larsen knew fish, but he wasn’t sure about retail.

“I didn’t think I would like it,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d be able to deal with the people. I didn’t think they’d be able to deal with me.”

For Robert C. Cleasby, program director at the Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting Association, there's no better time for singing and celebrating than tomorrow evening, minutes before the start of Illumination Night.

Illumination Night coincides with the culmination of many wonderful aspects of summer on the Vineyard. "This is the major Camp Ground festival as far as summer goes," Mr. Cleasby said. "It's the really fun one."

The bottom has fallen out of the wholesale lobster market, which is bad news for the lobstermen and good news for consumers.

The price being paid to lobstermen at the dock is at a 20-year low, according to Bill Adler, the executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association. He said the problem is tied to the economy and an oversupply of lobsters.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

A badly decomposed 37-foot young humpback whale washed up on South Beach on Friday night.

Sgt. Matthew Bass of the state environmental police said the whale was first spotted in the wash Friday afternoon, in an out of reach on a private beach near Job’s Neck Pond.

High winds, raging seas and strong currents have been hard on Chappaquiddick this winter. Large areas of beach down at Wasque have been moved and removed, lately at the rate of a foot a day. But the latest changes are at the other end of Chappy, where the post-Christmas northeaster cut a new opening on a barrier beach at Cape Pogue Pond.