Any good, rare photos inside perhaps?

You can find decent scans of the book here.

http://www.theforce.net/timetales/misc/arcana/arcana-1980.asp

It's pretty darn educational for a kid's book!

Oh, man!  I would have loved that book if I had it back in '80.  I'd like to have it now. 

I still have my copy. It has a dark blue cover- the photo in the 1st post is actually the title page, not the front cover.

I think I originally got it because it has some behind-the-scenes photos that I had not seen before.

BTW, it's Larry WEINberg. ;-)

It said Webberg whereever I was reading about it; I swear!

Check out the Deathstar. See anything out of the ordinary? Must be a production painting or something; I don't have any of my books at my disposal, but I seem to remember seeing drawings or paintings of it with the superlaser on the axis before, but don't recall this particular one.

Here it is again in 'The Star Wars Album' from '77.

Good catch. As it matches the graphic seen when the rebels "download" the DS plans from Artoo, maybe it's a prototype? The SW Album photo looks slightly different, and it seems like there's something behind it, which suggests a model or cutout.

They did experiment with rear projection for some shots in the movie, so they might have needed a Death Star for the distant views out the Falcon cockpit windows.

It's the same configuration in the Marvel adaptation too (based largely on production paintings).

Clearly the dish shift was a late in the day change.

Yes, Larry Cuba, the guy who did the vector graphics of the trench run worked from a painting/drawing of the Death Star with the dish on the equator. Hence the outcome.

Heilemann said:

It said Webberg whereever I was reading about it; I swear!

Check out the Deathstar. See anything out of the ordinary? Must be a production painting or something; I don't have any of my books at my disposal, but I seem to remember seeing drawings or paintings of it with the superlaser on the axis before, but don't recall this particular one.

 

Good call.  This is an unused matte painting.  Once ILM and Lucas changed the design, they didn't have time to change the graphic for the briefing as Jambe said.  They also replaced these mattes with physical models.