Ulysse Nardin’s Blast Moonstruck in rose gold revisits the brand’s astronomical lineage with quiet confidence. Conceived in the spirit of Dr. Ludwig Oechslin’s Trilogy of Time and the 2009 Moonstruck, it distills complex celestial mechanics into an elegant, legible tableau. Only 20 pieces will be made – a brief constellation.
The display is resolutely geocentric: a three-dimensional Northern Hemisphere floats beneath a sapphire glass box, while the Sun rides a 24-hour worldtimer disc at 12 o’clock with a two-tone day-night ring. The Moon orbits with proper phase and orientation – its illuminated half always facing the Sun – an Oechslin hallmark that makes astronomy readable at a glance.
Five indications interlock rather than compete: high-precision moonphase set only every 40.3 years, days of the lunar month, tidal coefficients, a worldtimer, and the apparent positions of Sun and Moon around the globe. In practice, you read local time, global time, and the state of the heavens without mental gymnastics. It is astronomy you can set with your thumbs.
That usability rests on the manufacture calibre UN-106, automatic, 4 Hz, 50 hours of reserve, and built around silicon know-how. Both escapement and hairspring are silicon, produced by SIGATEC, for stability and low friction. Ulysse Nardin’s patented time-setting mechanism advances or retreats local time by one hour via case pushers without disturbing the minute hand or the astronomical program. Crown adjustments handle the rest.
The architecture is Blast by name and intent: a 45 mm case marrying an 18 ct rose gold upper with a black DLC-treated titanium middle and bezel. Finishing alternates satin, polish, and laser-faceted edges, while an aventurine dial glimmers like a night sky beneath the suspended Earth. A rose gold date ring frames the scene; beneath, the calculation does the heavy lifting so the dial can stay serene.
This Moonstruck honors a path charted in 1985 by the Astrolabium, continued through Planetarium and Tellurium, then reframed in 2009. The new rose gold edition does not shout. It shows – how the Sun moves, how the Moon behaves, how tides swell – and lets the wearer decide when to look up.
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