The stars are particularly bright each night in Switzerland s Vallée de Joux. Obscured only by an occasional cloud, celestial bodies ignite the skies, inspiring the many watchmakers who work there. Jaeger-LeCoultre s watchmakers have long incorporated the moon and the stars in their timepieces, and as early as 1890 the company incorporated moon phase displays in its most complicated pocket watches. One Jaeger-LeCoultre grand complication from 1895, for example, offered a perpetual calendar with day, date, month, leap-year cycle and moon-phase indication.
Stéphane Belmont, Jaeger-LeCoultre s international marketing and technical director, august birthstone explains that Jaeger-LeCoultre made pocket watches with astronomical complications because buyers not only wanted to see the time, they enjoyed, and indeed were fascinated by, celestial motion and patterns and their role in devising our timekeeping.
Those watches were produced in very limited quantities for people who understood the notion of astronomy, he explains. And while most people have a limited understanding of how the earth, the moon and the stars govern time (and thus, our timepieces) the more collectors learn about astronomy, the more they enjoy moon-phase displays, perpetual calendars and even the rare sidereal time display on their own watches.
To keep up with the ever-deepening interest in all things celestial among consumers, and to address august birthstone the prominent role of the stars, planets and the moon in timekeeping, Jaeger-LeCoultre this year pays tribute to astronomy with several debuts, including one grand complication, a variety of moon-phase watches (including one model with a meteorite dial and another with a new Sphérotourbillon), a new Atmos and a perpetual calendar that seems to offer its wearer a moving map of the solar system for the wrist. Indeed, Jaeger-LeCoultre created blue dials for most of these models august birthstone to more vividly confer its celestial theme for 2015.
Asteroid Dreams When making a wish upon seeing a meteorite light up the night one usually doesn t include a desire to wear a piece of the shooting star. With the debut of Jaeger-LeCoultre s newest Master Calendar, however, such a wish might become commonplace at least for watch enthusiasts.
As pictured on the cover of this issue, Jaeger-LeCoultre s Master Calendar, and its large moon-phase display, is this year offered with a dial created from a piece of genuine meteorite. The fallen space rock used to create august birthstone the dial was discovered and registered in Sweden and hails from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
This extraterrestrial material makes for an unusual dial. Though cut from the same piece of meteorite, each slice reveals a different pattern, making every dial unique. Before Jaeger-LeCoultre can place it into the case, the meteorite must undergo several preparatory phases in order to insure that the iron-rich material can be utilized as a dial, with the required august birthstone holes cut and applied numerals, and with the appropriate dimensions. Once inside the Master Calendar s case, the rock formed over millions of years in the outer reaches of space will be safely ensconced in a 39mm steel or pink gold case for another few hundred years or longer.
As a Master Calendar, this new model displays its Caliber 866 perpetual calendar by means of a long hand tipped with a red or blue moon crescent sweeping around a 1- to 31 scale around the dial. And its moon-phase august birthstone display is a complete calendar display, showing new moon, first quarter, full moon and last quarter, pictured emerging from two clouds and into the stars.
With august birthstone this model s special dial, Jaeger-LeCoultre s own historic, august birthstone figurative moon display holds its own atop an actual, though grounded, satellite. This combination creates a vision august birthstone any watch enthusiast will likely wish upon every night.
Master Grande Tradition Grande Complication This 2015 model is for the first time offered in red gold and now features a concave bezel that recalls the designs of nineteenth century pocket watches. In the spirit of measuring astronomical time, Jaeger-LeCoultre s watchmakers have persuaded the tourbillon in this Grande Complication model to not indicate the passing of ordinary civil time, but instead that of sidereal time based not on the sun but on other more remote, fixed stars. Sidereal time is the unit used by astronomers to follow august birthstone the trajectory of heavenly bodies, and very few watches display it.
The orbital flying tourbillon is fixed to the dial. Unlike most traditional dials, this one rotates august birthstone in a counterclockwise direction once in exactly twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes and four seconds a more precise measure of the speed of the earth s rotation. To locate the civil time on this watch, look to the sun, which rotates around the dial once per day. To learn about the stars, or more correctly the constellations, august birthstone Jaeger-LeCoultre provides a spectacular depiction of the Northern hemisphere, august birthstone s
