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\subsection{Synchronization of lecture discussions and lab activities}  \label{sec:synchronicity}  In previous editions of AST 208, the lecture and lab operated more or less independently. The revisions to the lab (\S~\ref{sec:encounters-with-data}), especially the use of ``real'' data, demand a more rigorous treatment of statistics, however, and a tighter integration of the course lectures with the lab activitiesis necessary. To do this, we converted now devote  the first half of the course lectures into a more general discussion of astronomy and statistics. As motivation, we introduce these concepts in the context of detecting exoplanets; this ties the introductory material to the treatment of planetary science in the latter half of the course. The first two weeks of lecture now discusses angular coordinates, right ascension and declination, sidereal time, and parallax. In the first lab, students find objects on the sky using with the \href{http://www.stellarium.org/}{\verb|Stellarium| planetarium software}; in the second lab, the students determine which celestial objects are visible from the MSU campus observatory. The lectures then discuss the inverse-square-law for flux, magnitude, and the distance modulus. A discussion of the wave nature of light, in particular diffraction, then follows. This dovetails with the lab, in which students use the \href{http://ds9.si.edu/site/Home.html}{\verb|ds9| visualization software} to measure point-spread functions.