The nights ahead leading up to the Fourth of July are the best as we have an assembly of brilliant stars and bright planets.

Beginning tomorrow night, the thin crescent moon joins the celestial show, appearing first low in the southwestern sky after sunset. In the nights ahead it gets higher and more prominent.

The Big Dipper, a favorite constellation for astronomers of all ages, appears high in the northwestern sky as the evening begins. The handle of the dipper points to the bright star Arcturus, nearly overhead, in the constellation Bootes.

Caleb Gray of Vineyard Haven, and Sheila McHugh of Edgartown, were named to the dean’s list at Roger Williams University for the spring 2014 semester.

Taylor McNeely of Vineyard Haven was named to the dean’s list at Bucknell University for the spring 2014 semester.

Matthew Fisher, a resident of Vineyard Haven, and a senior German area studies major, was named to dean’s list in Ithaca College.

Island students went on board the whaling ship and explored its nooks and crannies. In the blubber room below decks, the children gathered to hear a Mystic Seaport educator speak about what happens after a whale is captured.

Scouting and tracking willets is considered important seasonal work among Vineyard biologists. The study of the migratory shorebirds may also provide important information about climate change.

Ross and Ashley MacPherson proudly announce the birth of their first child, Austin MacPherson.

It was almost a foregone conclusion that things would end badly for Roger Wey as far back as February when the town selectmen called for a police investigation of the council’s accounts at a meeting to which he was not even invited.

There is a sign on a lawn in Vineyard Haven that reads, Drive Like Your Children Live Here. A good idea, but perhaps too narrow a sentiment, implying that there is a divide behind the wheel between how Islanders and summer visitors navigate the roads.

Curtis Jones died June 22 at the age of 97. The Gazette published a profile of him in November 2005; it appears again here.