There are novelty watches, and then there are pretty interesting novelty watches. Ulysse Nardin always graces us with a multitude of interesting timepieces in addition to those it actually intends on being sales leaders. For a while, Ulysse Nardin was quite keen on taking up the challenge of producing a series of celestial or astronomical themed watches, with many a fascinating result.

Once such model is this Ulysse Nardin Planetarium Nicolaus Copernicus, which achieves the feat of showing a good deal of interesting (albeit incomplete on a modern scale) information. Aside from mere telling of the time, the watch is segmented in several concentric dials that each turn. You should first know that the watch means to represent both Ptolemy’s characterization of an Earth-centric universe along with Copernicus’ helio-centric universe. While Copernicus got it right, both of them calculated the scale of the universe. Along with such early notions of astronomy, the Ulysse Nardin Planetarium Nicolaus Copernicus contains only the seven planets of the ancient world. These included; Earth, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter.

The watch shoes the positions of the planets in relation to both universe representations. In the middle of the watch is the Sun, with the planets flowing out on each concentric dial, with a nice little name placed next to then. This way you can see the planetary movement for Copernicus’ universe. Next, if you look at Earth, you’ll see a series of lines flowing from it. These allow you to use the same representation to calculate the position of the planets in Ptolemy’s universe. Further, the position of the Earth indicates both the month of the year and specific zodiac period that the Earth is in by looking at the outer ring on the watch dial. Lastly, you’ll notice that the Earth itself spins on an axis allowing you to see the moon revolve around the Earth. Very detailed Ulysse Nardin. Regardless, the watch still does not contain each planet. Perhaps Ulysse Nardin thought we would come full circle and do away with Neptune and Uranus, as we did Pluto.

The watch itself came in two versions. Each with yellow gold cases, but one with actual meteorite used for the dial of the watch. A good taste of the celestial for such a themed watch. The design is fitting for placement in a marble appointed museum, or alike, but the features make for comfortable daily wear. Size of the watch is 40mm. The watch is powered by an automatic in-house Ulysse Nardin movement, and is admirably legible given the amount of features that it has. I’d hate to see this watch run out of power, and the user spend hours trying to reset all the features. More likely, you’d have to send it back to Ulysse Nardin for such labor. There are several other similar watches in the aforementioned celestial themed series of watches made by master watch maker Ulysse Nardin, stay turned for more of them.

See Ulysse Nardin watches on eBay here.