In a surprising revelation, it has been discovered that the trench run in the original Star Wars movie is not located in the equatorial trench of the Death Star, as many fans had believed. Instead, it is a north-south trench that was shown in a scene of General Dodonna briefing the rebel troops. The confusion arose from the fact that there were only two prominent geometric features of the Death Star: its dish and its equator, leading fans to wrongly connect the final trench with the equatorial trench. Additionally, the animated Death Star plans depicted in the film showed the dish centered on the equator, when in reality it was in the northern hemisphere. This discrepancy occurred because of a design change made to the Death Star during production, which Larry Cuba, the creator of the computer graphics, was not notified of in time to change his already-in-progress work. Despite the confusion, this new understanding adds a unique twist to the beloved Star Wars franchise.
http://fxrant.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-death-star-and-final-trench-run.html