Dunes of Mars now depicted on a watch dial.
In September this year, the spacecraft Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter beamed back unparalleled high-resolution imagery of the Red Planet's surface, showing real barchan dunes on Mars.
A timepiece by Christiaan van der Klaauw was unveiled in November called CVDK Planetarium Dunes of Mars, where the same sandy Martian surface is reproduced on the dial in red Aventurine Glass. But the interesting Martian backdrop isn't this model's sole highlight.
The star role is played by the smallest mechanical model of the Solar System, positioned at 6 o'clock. The round indication reproduces planetary orbits around the Sun: Mercury (completes a full orbit in 87.97 days), Venus (224.7 days), Earth (365.24 days), Mars (686.98 days), Jupiter (11.86 years) Saturn (29.46 years).
A model with a similar indication called CVDK Planetarium Eise Eisinga won the Calendar and Astronomy Watch Prize at last year's at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) The winning model's name includes a reference to the creator of the world's oldest functioning planetarium. It's been recreated in the watch.
The Dutch amateur astronomer Eise Eisinga built his wooden mechanical planetarium to scale, where one million kilometers is equal to one millimeter. The functioning orrery he built on his living-room ceiling in 1781 is still on display in the city of Franeker.
It's interesting that the seventh planet from the Sun, Uranus, was discovered just two months after Eisinga built his orrery. That's why his model only has six planets, and so does the dial of the CVDK Planetarium Dunes of Mars. Planetary movements on the dial are controlled by the automatic twin-barrel CVDK7386 movement, which has a 96-hour power reserve.
Apart from the planetarium, the dial also features a calendar with disk indications for the date and month. The brand's logo is placed above it. It can also be found engraved on the movement's rotor, urrounded by planets and stars. Two versions of the CVDK Planetarium Dunes of Mars are available: the 40 mm case comes in rose gold and white gold, each limited to six pieces.