From History to Complication
When we look at complications on a watch, we often just base it off of the looks nowadays. A chronograph isn’t really used to measure the speed of a race car anymore, de date is more often looked at on our phones together with maybe even the time. But what about the more detailed complications like the moon phase?
Why do we care about the cycle of the moon?
So, in the past, the phase of the moon was used for several different ways of timekeeping. Of course the stance of the moon was used to determine the time. Besides the general time during the night, it was used to keep track of the date. However in that period, the Julian calendar, which is based on the solar year of 365 days, was not used yet in that time. The moon phase was counting a 29.5 day cycle that was the guideline for the agriculture and and farming. This was all going on during the BC period when we were also still navigating the globe to find new land. Moreover the moon phase was important for night traveling and the ocean tides. To conclude, in the early years of the exploring and advancing human kind, the moon phase was a very important measure of time.
The Moonphase complication.
In nowadays’ horological world, we find the moon phase in a lot of different iterations, none of them are truly useful anymore, however they still provide a stunningly chique look to the dial. The way that different brands play with this complication is inevitable to admire.
Some brands show both the south and north hemisphere of the moon phase, some others only show one. This complication can also be executed like it is done by Agelocer, where the moon phase takes over almost the complete face of the dial with a beautiful detailed picture of the surface actual moon. Lastly I would like to mention the Tag Heuer Carrera Astronomer that shows all the faces of the moon on the dial and uses a dual pointer to indicate the phase of the moon in both of the hemisphere’s at once.
What I think of the moon?
Personally I am attracted to the ways we have done things in the past when computerized iterations were not widely common. Think of writing by hand, preserving time in a mechanical movement, cooking above actual fire instead of induction and using furniture that is made by hand, rather than a mass production line in a factory.
Therefore I am genuinely intrigued by the phase of the moon and how we used to use it to decide when to start seeding our crops and how we used to understand what period of the month we were in. Lastly, I am continuously amazed by our universe that our world, therefore our moon, is part of. We interestingly live on a floating rock together with many other rocks and collective bubbles of burning gas that are infinitely expanding into absolute nothingness. If that isn’t something astonishing to you, I don’t know what will be.
In Conclusion
Even though the Moon phase is a complication that would be obsolete with nowadays technology. It can be a complication that reminds us of where we came from. Where we are in the universe and therefore that the assignment you have at work, might not be so incredibly important as your boss tries to portray it.