Hands on your watch? nah, let's use planets!
Discussion
Just seen this and I cant decide if its exquisite or a bit OTT
Science Webpage said:
Think 12 or 24 hour watches are a little short-sighted?
The Midnight Planétarium timepiece tracks the position of the six planets visible from Earth. Each of them are independently controlled for precise tracking at any given time and their true orbital speeds are represented. Aside from keeping you updated on planetary positioning, it also functions as a regular watch with the shooting star indicating the time in hours and minutes.
Instead of hands denoting the hours and minutes, planets rotate around a tiny rose gold sun in real-time. Mercury will make a lap around the watch's face in just 88 days, Venus will require 224, and Earth of course does it in one year. Saturn, which is the farthest planet from the sun in the watch, won't make it back to its starting position for 29.5 years.
Inspired by planetariums, the movement of the watch was created for Van Cleef & Arpels' by Dutch watchmaker Christiaan van der Klaauw.
The discs are made of aventurine, and each planet is a semiprecious stone.
Mercury is serpentine, Saturn is sugilite, Venus is chloromelanite, Earth is turquoise, Mars is red jasper and Jupiter is blue agate.
A rotating rose gold outer rim lets the wearer choose a special day on which the Earth will move under the star engraved in the sapphire crystal.
The standard version retails for £185,000 and a version decorated with diamonds can be had for £247,500
The Midnight Planétarium timepiece tracks the position of the six planets visible from Earth. Each of them are independently controlled for precise tracking at any given time and their true orbital speeds are represented. Aside from keeping you updated on planetary positioning, it also functions as a regular watch with the shooting star indicating the time in hours and minutes.
Instead of hands denoting the hours and minutes, planets rotate around a tiny rose gold sun in real-time. Mercury will make a lap around the watch's face in just 88 days, Venus will require 224, and Earth of course does it in one year. Saturn, which is the farthest planet from the sun in the watch, won't make it back to its starting position for 29.5 years.
Inspired by planetariums, the movement of the watch was created for Van Cleef & Arpels' by Dutch watchmaker Christiaan van der Klaauw.
The discs are made of aventurine, and each planet is a semiprecious stone.
Mercury is serpentine, Saturn is sugilite, Venus is chloromelanite, Earth is turquoise, Mars is red jasper and Jupiter is blue agate.
A rotating rose gold outer rim lets the wearer choose a special day on which the Earth will move under the star engraved in the sapphire crystal.
The standard version retails for £185,000 and a version decorated with diamonds can be had for £247,500
I'm definitely in the 'exquisite' camp. There are other threads on here where you can see some laughably OTT watches. This for me is an example of very fine watchmaking and the overall look is relatively discreet. I'd be interested to know the width as it can't have been easy to pack all those rings in.
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