The OMEGA-branded crown isn’t screw down you pull it out a fraction to wind the watch, a fraction more to set the time. Tactical operators need not apply you can hear the pushers’ thunkclick from across a room. If you don’t, you have to hammer the thing. That’s ideal if you want to pre-load the pusher (like cocking a gun). There’s a bit of play before the start/stop pusher engages. (Fortunately, there’s an OMEGA OEM aftermarket solution.)Īnd while we’re on the subject of tactility, the Moonwatch’s pushers are stiff. The clasp provides just two micro-adjustment points and OMEGA doesn’t make half links. The Moonwatch bracelet is as secure as a Swiss bank vault, but it may not fit perfectly.
It creates an all-steel vibe that somehow straddles the line between Village People 70’s machismo and timeless minimalism. No question: like the Tudor Black Bay 41, it’s its own thing.Īll hail the unheralded Moonwatch bracelet, a silky, sturdy, three-links-across affair.īecause it flows from the case’s exquisitely twisted lugs like water down a stream bed, because the Speedy’s case is largely invisible from every angle, the bracelet is the case. There’s an undeniable totality to this duo-chromatic chronograph, an irrational sense of completeness. Not just in an anachronistic, throwback Thursday, the Eagle has landed sort of way. Yes, well, you want legibility? Buy a book! It’s a federal offense - a violation of the Crimes Against Historical Horology Act - to mess with the Moonwatch’s original layout.īesides, if OMEGA futzed with the Moonwatch’s dial design it wouldn’t be a Moonwatch. Other “Moonwatches” fix the problem - deleting a sub-dial here, changing the dial color there, modifying the hands, making the bezel numbers more prominent, etc. The Moonwatch sometimes resembles a game of Pick Up Sticks. Whether parked at 12 or sweeping the dial, the tapering chrono hand does nothing to help the situation, and a lot to confuse things. The main hands frequently obscure the sub-dials’ hands. With the logo and model name stacked under the 12 o’clock index, the Moonwatch dial is almost as crowded as a Japanese subway car. All white, but not all right.Īside from 7:15 am or so, the Speedy’s not a quick read. The face within the Moonwatch’s outer ring is iconic: white rectangular indices all ’round, sunken sub-dials at the 3, 6 and 9 positions, identically shaped hour and minute hands, and a giant chrono hand extending to the outer edge of the dial. On the downside, the Speedy’s tachymeter markings indiscernible to all but the youngest, sharpest eyes. The steel-rimmed ring circumnavigating the Moonwatch’s dial is a thin thing a whisper compared to the bezels surrounding a Tag Heuer Formula 1, Rolex Daytona or Seiko anything. The 42mm case diameter is a tad shy of a humongous 44m Panerai, but the Moonwatch doesn’t look big.Ĭredit the outer bezel. It’s also a lot of watch, tipping the scales at 117 grams (4.13 ounces). There’s enough information on the “Speedy’s” development to fill a book or ten.
#Omega speedmaster moonwatch professional chronograph manual#
It’s more or less the same manual wind timepiece that Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin - a self-confessed “watch guy” - wore when he tripped the light fantastic across the lunar surface. The watch reviewed here is the latest iteration of the original, unadorned, unbedazzled Moonwatch Professional Chronograph. Jewels, moon phase complication, solid gold, meteorite dial, grey face, all-white, Co-Axial movement, this anniversary, that anniversary - there’s no limit to OMEGA’s limited edition Moonwatches. OMEGA offers a farrago of Speedmaster variants, from a ceramic-cased Dark Side of the Moon to the Silver Snoopy (commemorating the 14-second fuel burn that helped save Apollo 13). Redo the OMEGA Speedmaster Moonwatch Professional Chronograph 42mm? Endlessly. (That’s one small step for “A” man, Neil.) Redo? Not a chance.
But not as pissed as NASA’s PR department when Armstrong forgot to use the definite article for his first words on the lunar surface. I bet OMEGA’s marketing mavens were pissed. Neil Armstrong wasn’t wearing his Speedmaster when he set foot on the moon.
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