New edition pays tribute to the Apollo 8 mission.
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills," said John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1962, describing the goal of the American Moon-landing project.
The newly elected president made conquering space one of his priorities, which gave America the Apollo mission (throughout the 1960s, right up to Apollo 17 in December 1972), and fans of watches were given the main lunar Omega Speedmaster model.
The most famous achievement made by astronauts and the most important Moonwatch are connected by the first moonwalk during the Apollo 11 mission. But cementing their position as the maker of the most cosmic watches, Omega also turns to other missions with interesting stories.
Omega Speedmaster Dark Side of the Moon Apollo 8
In 2020, Omega marked the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13, when a wristwatch saved astronauts' lives by allowing them to time an exact 14-second course-correction burn of engine fuel. Omega marked the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8 two years earlier in 2018, when a ship entered lunar orbit for the first time, and saw the dark side of the moon.
The anniversary series has been extended this year: the movement housed in the Omega Speedmaster "Dark Side Of The Moon" Apollo 8 has taken the decoration to a new level, while the small seconds hand has been turned into a model of the Saturn V launch vehicle (scaled down to a ratio 1:19,000).
The atmosphere of this watch in a black ceramic case measuring 44.25 mm in diameter is created by the decoration on the hand-wound caliber 3869. What makes this movement based on caliber 3861 stand out are the details visible on the dial side, which depicts a view of the Moon from Earth, while the dark side of the Moon is replicated on the caseback.
Another reminder of this unique Apollo 8 mission are the words of Jim Lovell engraved around the caseback: "We'll see you on the other side".
These were the words uttered by the astronaut before the ship went behind the Moon and NASA lost contact with the vessel. Earthlings could only wait with bated breath for the Apollo 8 to regain contact with ground control. The 3869 movement with co-axial escapement is a certified Master Chronometer.