In the battle of Yavin, the Empire wants to destroy a moon that is hidden behind the planet Yavin. They circle around the planet because the moon is hidden. Again: They are on a space station that can destroy planets! Planets! Like the one that is obstructing a clear shot on the rebel base (i.e. the moon).
The only reason I see for them not to simply blow up Yavin is that it may take too long for the Death Star to be able to shoot again. So, is there any information on how long it would take?
As a side note, I have an alternate theory of why they didn't destroy Yavin, maybe those guys'
union forbade the Empire to unnecessarily expose them to radiation?
(Source: Irregular Webcomic #512)
Answer
Well, according to Wookieepedia's entry on the Death Star:
The Death Star's superlaser derived power directly from the hypermatter reactor. Its faceted amplification crystal combined the destructive power of eight separate tributary beams into one single blast with the intensity of a stellar core. After firing a blast, though, the Imperial engineers had to recharge the reactor, which took at least 24 standard hours. Though the energy output of this blast could be scaled to fire at smaller targets such as capital ships, as was the case during the Rebel assault on the second Death Star, the two major instances in which the superlaser was fired were at full power at planetary bodies.
(Emphasis added)
Now, I don't see exactly the source of the information, but most things on Wookieepedia derive from the rather extensive information in the Star Wars Extended Universe publications, which include tech specs and so forth.
I'd take a guess that most of it came from the novel of the same name.
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