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Left to right: Chopard L.U.C Lunar Big Date ($32,180); Arnold & Son HM Perpetual Moon ($27,845 in red gold). STORY BY B Y J O N AT H O N K E AT S P H O T OG R A P H Y B Y JEFF H A R R IS Stellar Aspirations A ticking reminder of one’s place in the universe, the astronomical timepiece makes a lofty addition to your watch collection. 1 ROBB REPORT WATCH COLLECTOR STELLAR ASPIRATIONS A Left to right: Ulysse Nardin Moonstruck ($125,500 in platinum); Ochs und Junior Moon Phase ($8,000 in titanium). since the moon orbits Earth every 29-and-a-half days. Or 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 2.9 seconds to be precise—and accuracy is the common cause of astronomy and watchmaking. Horologists have approached this mechanical challenge by increasing the fineness of their gearing. On older watches, 59 teeth were cut into a wheel AMONG THE LESSER-KNOWN with two full moons—each covered in turn—an arrangement that facets of the famous rivalry between 1920s- lost a day every couple of years. By increasing the number of teeth to era industrialists James Ward Packard and 135, watchmakers have improved accuracy significantly. The large Henry Graves Jr.—two avid collectors who classical lunar display on the Arnold & Son HM Perpetual Moon each ordered successively more complicated shows the monthly waxing and waning with a lag of just one day pocket watches from Patek Philippe—is every 122 years. That performance is matched by the Chopard L.U.C that both men set their sights on a highly Lunar Big Date, which presents the lunar cycle on a novel “orbital” personal complication: They each wanted display that shows the various moon phases for both the Northern their nec plus ultra timepiece to feature and Southern Hemispheres. celestial time with a star chart depicting But 122 years is not the mechanical limit. Ludwig Oechslin has the sky over their respective homes. While developed an innovative new moon-phase module for the Ochs und astronomical complications may seem Junior Moon Phase that deviates by just one day in 3,478.27 years. arcane to some, enthusiasts recognize (as Oechslin achieves this feat by using epicyclic gearing, in which a Packard and Graves once did) that they train of gears controls the rotation of a disc inside an internally touch our primal notions of time, which is toothed hub. The epicyclic gearing and selection of gears within it why they can still command center stage allow him to impart an extremely precise ratio of rotation between in the most complicated timepieces today. the hour hand and the lunar display: The disc revolves once every Even before watches and clocks had min- 29.5306122449 days. ute hands, 17th-century horologists devel- For Oechslin, this mathematical feat is child’s play. He may be oped gearwork to display moon phases, best remembered for the trio of astronomical watches that brought useful in an agrarian society lacking arti- Ulysse Nardin’s mechanical watchmaking back to prominence in the ficial lighting, yet hardly straightforward 1980s and ’90s. Recapitulating the early history of astronomy, 3 ROBB REPORT WATCH COLLECTOR STELLAR ASPIRATIONS Left to right: Blancpain Equation of Time Marchante ($171,300 in red gold); Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Equation of Time ($68,700 in stainless steel). 6 ROBB REPORT WATCH COLLECTOR STELLAR ASPIRATIONS the Ulysse Nardin Tellurium Johannes Kepler, However, if you define noon as the time when the sun is highest in for instance, shows the apparent motion of the sky—as you would read on a sundial—it wanders by as much as the sun, the Earth, and the moon from a ter- 16 minutes depending on the time of year. The variation is caused restrial perspective. The Moonstruck watch by our planet’s elliptical orbit and the 23-degree tilt of its axis; this Oechslin conceived with Ulysse Nardin a few deviation can be mechanically simulated by the annual rotation of years ago takes up where the Tellurium left a kidney-shaped or “ellipsoidal” cam that geometrically represents off. Earth is fixed at the center of the dial, seasonal time variation. The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Equation shown from above the North Pole, with disks of Time elegantly displays the difference by placing a special blued for the sun and the moon orbiting around hand on the same axis as the regular hours and minutes, and orient- it. Since Oechslin’s mechanism alters the ing the equation to your local solar zenith (which depends on your moon phase in tandem with the lunar disk’s longitude). The cam rotates the blued hand to the exact minute when rotation, the wearer can see how the moon’s your sundial would tell you it is noon. crescent is sculpted by Earth’s shadow. More profoundly, the watch tracks global tides, which are caused by the combined gravitational pull of the sun and the moon on the seas. Of course, the world view shown by Oechslin’s watch is make-believe, a geocentric model predating Copernicus. Yet the watch also helps to explain why that world view was so persistent, since the information on the Moonstruck dial consistently corresponds to B LANCPAIN’S Equation of Time Marchante takes another approach to displaying this deviation. A special secondary minute hand shows sundial time throughout the day, rather than only indicating solar noon. Such a running equation is very difficult to execute mechanically because it requires the hand to be oriented by the ellipsoidal cam while it is being rotated by the regular gear train. For that purpose, Blancpain developed a unique Earth-based observations of the sky above. set of differential gears. Over the course of the year, the solar hand Other astronomical functions reveal how speeds up or slows down to match the path of the sun. our very concept of time is itself a matter Sidereal time, the measurement that drove the star charts of rival of perspective. The complication known as collectors Graves and Packard, differs from both civil and solar time equation of time is especially unsettling, because it derives from the stars rather than the sun. Astronomers since it openly challenges the position of define a day as one complete rotation of our planet on its own axis, the watch’s minute hand by showing the as measured by the daily crossing of a fixed star infinitely far from discrepancy between official “civil” time Earth. Since our standard 24-hour day accounts for both planetary and the time you’d read on a sundial. The spin and Earth’s rotation around the sun, the sidereal day is ever 24-hour increments of civil time never vary. so slightly shorter: 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.0905 seconds. Patek Philippe Sky Moon Celestial Grand Complication, Reference 6102 ($329,600). 7 ROBB REPORT WATCH COLLECTOR STELLAR ASPIRATIONS Arnold & Son 213.622.1133 www.arnoldandson.com Audemars Piguet 212.688.6644 www.audemarspiguet.com Watchmakers seeking to show the night sky must build a special gear train that runs at Blancpain 877.520.1735 www.blancpain.com Chopard this minutely faster rate. Sidereal time has been built into the Jaeger-LeCoultre Rendez-Vous Celestial, which builds the daily passage of the con- 800.246.7273 stellations in the Northern Hemisphere into www.us.chopard.com a romantic women’s timepiece, and the Van Jaeger-LeCoultre 800.552.8463 www.jaegerlecoultre.com Cleef & Arpels Midnight in Paris, which depicts the starry sky specifically over the French capital. Patek Philippe has also revisited the Ochs und Junior celestial realm with the Sky Moon, a +41.41.266.02.12 complication whose origins are rooted in www.ochsundjunior.ch the watches made for Packard and Graves Patek Philippe 212.218.1240 www.patek.com and which is now the hallmark of some of the brand’s most complex and exclusive watches. Displaying a broad panoramic view of the sky, with an overlaid oval Ulysse Nardin indicating what can be seen from a given 561.988.8600 latitude and longitude (usually Geneva), www.ulysse-nardin.com the Sky Moon is driven by a mechanism Van Cleef & Arpels 877.826.2533 www.vancleef-arpels.com that was first released in the Star Caliber and subsequently miniaturized for the wellknown Sky Moon Tourbillon. The mechanism features an aperture in the deep blue dial opening to a view of the moon with Left to right: Van Cleef & Arpels both the phase and angle accurately shown. Midnight in Paris ($80,000); Jaeger-LeCoultre Rendez-Vous Packard and Graves had the privilege of Celestial ($62,000). carrying their portions of the night sky in their pockets. Only now, with the Sky Moon, can you wear all of it, revolving with the planet, on your wrist. 10 ROBB REPORT WATCH COLLECTOR