Omega continues their trend of releasing a new Speedmaster at the opening of a new year, and this time the brand is revisiting the Apollo 8 Speedmaster concept with a new Dark Side of the Moon. The first Apollo 8 themed Speedmaster Dark Side of the Moon was released in 2018, and featured a semi-openworked dial that was finished to look like the surface of the moon, and continued that finish across the bridges of the 1861 movement. The concept was meant to honor the 50th anniversary of NASA’s Apollo 8, the first crewed spaceflight to reach the moon. This year, Omega returns to this concept, and this time adds a tip of the hat to the Saturn V rocket that launched the crew into space in December of 1968.
The newest Apollo 8 Speedmaster is a Dark Side of the Moon variation, meaning it gets a black ceramic case sized at 44.25mm in diameter. Like all Speedmasters, this is a case that wears a bit easier than the numbers may suggest, so while it’s not a small watch by any means, it is indeed wearable. The hand-wound movement keeps the total thickness to 13mm, though the lug to lug remains at a healthy 50mm. The surface of the moon is once again rendered on the dial and movement side in a very similar manner to the original from 2018. Yellow accents pull duty within the timing elements of the watch, while white indexes and hands will supply the time.
This is a watch that could easily be mistaken for the 2018 Apollo 8 DSOM, but there is a detail on the dial side that sets it apart in an important way. Within the running seconds sub dial at 9 o’clock the hand has been replaced with a miniature Saturn V rocket to impressive detail. The slender rocket fills nearly the entirety of the sub-dial, with its tip ticking away each second. The rocket itself is rendered in titanium and achieves its detail with the use of lasers, white varnish, and ablation. There is an impressive level of detail here for such a small element, and may encourage you to walk around with a loupe with which to fully appreciate.
Flipping the watch over presents the new 3869 hand-wound chronograph movement, which marks the first appearance of a METAS-certified movement in a DSOM Speedmaster. The laser-ablated moon relief continues on this side of the watch as well, and is joined by the inscription “We’ll see you on the other side.” uttered by Jim Lovell just before entering the dark (and radio free) side of the moon. The date of the mission is also inscribed along the exhibition window.
While the watch bears a striking resemblance to the 2018 version, the use of the Saturn V rocket, and the detail with which it’s been created, continue a trend within Omega to push the small details as far as they can. The last Snoopy Speedmaster pulled a similar trick with a rotating rocket in the caseback, and the Spirate System we saw last year was equally impressive on the micro scale. It’s all pretty cool stuff, but I’d like to see Omega zoom out a bit and take a macro approach to their watches showing us the same care in the design and ergonomics of the case, or even collection updates that we’ve been waiting for (Planet Ocean, anyone?).
The new Speedmaster Dark Side of the Moon Apollo 8 edition is priced at $14,300 and will be available via Omega boutiques. Omega.