Heavenly Bodies: The Ulysse Nardin Moonstruck Blast, Hands On

The Ulysse Nardin Moonstruck Blast was introduced back in February of 2022, but the first model was launched in 2009 and the story behind the complication is even older. Ulysse Nardin was revived as a brand by the late Rolf Schnyder, in 1983, during a period of revival in mechanical watchmaking in which the creation of complications was seen as a way of creating new interest in a technically obsolete technology. While some brands focused on reviving classic complications like the perpetual calendar, rattrapante chronograph, minute repeater, and grande sonnerie, Schnyder, and the polymath watchmaker, scientist, and historian Ludwig Oechslin, worked on creating new versions of astronomical complications, culminating in the Trilogy of Time, a set of three unique astronomical watches offering highly unusual visions of the relationship between the Earth, Sun, Moon, and other planets in the Solar System.

In 2001, Ulysse Nardin launched the Freak, which since then has become, I think more than any other watch it produces, identified with Ulysse Nardin, but the idea of producing astronomical complications continued to preoccupy Oechslin and Schnyder, and in 2009, the company launched the first version of the Moonstruck. The Moonstruck, like the Tellurium Johannes Kepler from the Trilogy of Time, showed the Earth as seen from above, and the positions of the Sun and Moon relative to each other. The Moonstruck, however, also showed the the tides, and not only that, showed when the alignment of the Sun and Moon would produce either an unusually high, high tide – a “spring tide” – or an unusually low high tide – a “neap tide.” In 2022, those functions, along with other Moonstruck complications like the age and phase of the Moon, got a new case – the Blast case, an aggressively geometric design the company first introduced in 2020. The Blast Moonstruck is the version of the original 2009 complication which is available today.

The Blast Moonstruck’s dial is centered on an image of the Earth as seen from a vantage point above the North Pole, which is engraved on the underside of the domed sapphire crystal. The Earth doesn’t rotate; it’s fixed in position, as is the date ring around it. The Sun is prominently displayed on a ring which rotates once every 24 hours, showing the time in 24 reference cities on the outer, non-rotating city ring.

The phase of the Moon is shown in an aperture which circles, once per month, over a sinusoidal, five-lobed disk underneath, with the most convex lobes corresponding to a full Moon, and the most concave areas corresponding to a new Moon. Now, one of the tricky parts here is that the Moon, like the Sun, rotates around the Earth once per day, so the Moon disk under the aperture has to rotate as well – otherwise the watch would show five full and five new Moons every 24 hours.

The second interesting problem is that if the Moon aperture rotated once every 24 hours, exactly like the Sun, it would always appear to be in the same place in the sky at any given time of day or night. This, however, would be wrong, since the Moon is orbiting the Earth, and so, seen from Earth, at any given time of day or night the Moon has moved about 13º to the East, relative to the background stars.

To account for this, the moonphase aperture is also geared to move Eastward relative to its position on the previous day, by, says Ulysse Nardin, “by an angle corresponding, in degrees, to 1/29.53 of a lunar month to occupy a new position in relation to the Sun.” This addition motion allows the Moon to change its position relative to the Sun and Earth over a period of approximately one synodic, or Lunar, month; when the Moon aperture is directly between the Sun and Earth, it’s a new Moon, and when it’s directly opposite the Sun and Earth, it’s a full Moon. The number of days  between each full Moon and each new Moon, sometimes called the “age of the Moon” can be read off the circle on which the Moon aperture rotates; the number adjacent to the Sun, from one to 15, gives the age of the Moon.

You might wonder, since the watch shows the relative positions of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, whether or not you can use it to predict a Lunar eclipse. The answer is no, although it can tell you when a full Lunar eclipse might occur. A Lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon is directly between the Earth and the Sun (it is an interesting coincidence that as seen from Earth, the Moon is almost exactly the right size to perfectly cover the Sun) but an actual eclipse only occurs when a particular point in the Lunar orbit, called a “node,” is being crossed by the new Moon. The Moon’s orbit is very slightly tilted with respect to the plane in which the Earth orbits the Sun. This is called the “plane of the ecliptic” and the Moon’s orbit crosses the plane of the ecliptic twice per Lunar month; the intersection points are the Moon’s nodes. Every lunar month, the Moon’s nodes move slightly to the West, by about 1.61º per month, so the new Moon and one of the nodes only cross together often enough to cause a total solar eclipse somewhere on Earth, anywhere from two to five times per year. A new Moon is therefore a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for an eclipse, which requires an exact alignment of the Moon, Sun, and one of the Moon’s orbital nodes.

Finally, there’s the tide indication. The Moon aperture sits on one lobe of an ellipse, with the other lobe opposite it 180º. These show the tidal bulges caused by the Moon’s gravity, and whatever parts of the Earth are under one of the two tidal bulges, are experiencing high tides. The Sun, likewise, is located on one lobe of an ellipse, since the Moon also generates a tidal bulge, albeit one weaker than the Moon’s. When the Sun and Moon are aligned, or when they’re in direct opposition, the gravitational pull of the tidal bulges are additive and you get a Spring tide; when the Sun and Moon are at right angles to each other, the tidal bulges slightly cancel each other out, and you get a Neap tide. At the head of the Bay of Fundy, which is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which has the highest tidal range in the world, a Spring tide can have a tide range of sixteen meters, or over fifty feet (so careful where you park your car).

“Spring” in Spring tide is from the Old English “springan” which means, “to well up” and “neap” is derived from the Old English “nep,” as in “nipped in the bud” per the Fundy National Park.

The Moonstruck Blast in particular, and the Moonstruck complication in particular, are a type of complication known as a tellurium, which is a planetarium showing the relative positions of the Sun, Moon, and Earth. They are quite rare in watchmaking; the only other two I can think of offhand, are the Lange & Söhne Richard Lange Perpetual Calendar Terraluna, and the Bovet Récital 22 Grand Récital – oh, and there’s the SpaceOne Tellurium as well.

It’s an exciting complication for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its connection to a lineage of astronomical complications from Ulysse Nardin which were responsible for making the brand something of a celebrity in the years just after Rolf Schnyder acquired it, and began his partnership with Ludwig Oechslin. Innovation in astronomical complications of any kind is unusual, and planetarium watches in general, and tellurium watches in particular, are of an exotic breed which today recalls a time when brands were vying to outdo each other in imagination and creativity. Watchmaking nowadays can feel a bit static from a creative standpoint and the market is less inclined to reward this sort of watchmaking than it used to be, but that is irrelevant in appreciating what the Moonstruck represents both in the history of Ulysse Nardin, and in the revival of mechanical watchmaking.

The Ulysse Nardin Blast Moonstruck: case, titanium and ceramic, or titanium and red gold, 45mm x 15.12mm with sapphire crystals front and back; water resistance 30 meters. Movement, caliber UN-106, automatic, 35.4mm, running at 28,800 vph in 42 jewels, 50 hour power reserve. Functions: hours, minutes, date, age and phase of the Moon, positions of the Sun and Moon relative to each other and the Earth; tide indication showing tides and occurrences of Spring and Neap tides. Silicon escapement. Price, $107,700 in titanium and ceramic; $116,000 in titanium and red gold. For more information, visit Ulysse-Nardin.com.