Omega Speedmaster Blue Side of The Moon Aventurine Review
Let’s take a close look at a special Speedmaster watch that sparkles and shines like stars in the heavens.
Omega Speedmaster Blue Side of The Moon Aventurine Review
The place was Basel, and the year was 2018 when Omega decided to unveil the new Speedy chronograph watch with its sparkling Aventurine dial. Today we will review this watch in depth and show you why this is not your average Speedy.
While this is not the first ever Blue Side of The Moon ever made, it certainly is the most attractive in my humble opinion. The picture below will show you two different models sitting side-by-side. On the left there is a blue face with a sunray finish while on the right is the gliterring blue Aventurine.
Just as the title suggests, this model has the eye-catching Blue Aventurine dial that sends the eye-candy factor of this dial to a level that is out of this world. Named after the Italian word for ‘Adventure’, this dial shares something with those that look to the stars and long to someday join the ever-growing number of civilians taking a shot at space exploration.
The dial has a very symmetrical and balanced look with the great distribution of visual weight all around. A design element that will certainly catch your eye is the use of 18kt Sedna gold accents on the dial such as the textured moon in the moonphase window that has lifelike miniaturized realism, the luminous central hands, and luminescent index hour markers as well as the small rose gold hands on the sub-dials.
Further use of this pink gold color is found in the Ceragold™ (18kt Sedna gold-filled) Tachymetric scale on the blue ceramic bezel. A white printed seconds and split-seconds track wraps around the perimeter of the dial with white printed indices around the 12-hour chronograph sub-dial at the 3 o’clock position and the date with integrated small running second’s sub-dial at the 9 o’clock position. The date is indicated by a small hand with a red crescent shaped tip that encircles the day of the month.
The blue structured strap is made of a blue alligator leather with white stitching and has soft leather on the reverse side of the strap where you’ll find red stitching. It features a sturdy and durable blue rubber pin-hole module (pictured above) to prevent premature wear and tear in the most vulnerable areas of the strap.
Another beautiful and useful feature of this wristwatch is the titanium push-button deployant buckle that is lightweight, practical, and timesaving.
When it comes to aesthetics and pure cosmetic beauty Omega has done something amazing with this wristwatch. Between the spectacular looking dial and the beautifully finished movement the watch designers at Omega have created quite the masterpiece. They even went as far as to file a patent for the blue enamel Aventurine glass moon phase disc with the 18kt Sedna gold textured moon.
The movement has a stunning spiraling arabesque pattern finish. Several inscriptions are found on the movement including ‘Omega Master Co-Axial 9904’, the name of the automatic movement that powers this timepiece, ‘Fifty-Four (54) Jewels’, and the words ‘Barrel One’ and ‘Barrel Two’ indicating the double barrel architecture allowing an above average power reserve duration of 60 hours.
This self-winding movement houses some excellent features such as a chronograph that provides the watch with a stopwatch function. The chronograph has a smooth start and stop action courtesy of the design column wheel mechanism. The large central seconds hand belongs to the chronograph and has a luminescent spearheaded design with a longer red pointer for the tip. At the 3 o’clock position is a sub register that has both a minutes and hour counter integrated into one sub-dial.
The MASTER Chronometer pedigree offered by this movement is a topic in and of itself and worthy of its own article. In fact, we had once written about it quite extensively in a previous comparison article. The full testing procedure for this designation is rather extensive and you can read all about it in this article. To sum up some of the noteworthy highlights of this movement, and there are many, here is the short list:
- Antimagnetic properties built into this movement allow for exposure to electromagnetic fields even greater than 15,000 gauss.
- Omega’ Co-Axial escapement that improves the precision, performance and sustainability of the caliber allowing for longer intervals between the regular service and maintenance of the movement. This is done by having less surfaces of friction, reducing the need for lubricants.
- Proprietary Si14 silicon balance spring made of a material that is impervious to magnetism. It is highly resilient to shock unlike its counterparts that are made-of-metal.
- MASTER Chronometer designation is a 3rd-party Swiss laboratory-issued pedigree from METAS (Swiss federal Institute of Metrology) that only Omega holds. Additionally, before the mechanical movement is brought to METAS for testing, it first needs to go through testing with the COSC and achieve a prestigious COSC Chronometer designation. Only after passing tests by both 3rd party labs, does it achieve the Master Chronometer designation.
The watch belongs to a 44.25mm Speedmaster series with a 44.25 mm blue ceramic case that is crafted in a durable, scratch-resistant blue ceramic material with beveled edges and a brushed finish. A domed scratch-resistant sapphire crystal covers the dial and case back and is truly stunning.
All-in-all this is a stunning watch. Magnificent in every which way and a worthy addition to any collection looking for a unique piece that will certainly catch the eye of watch aficionados all over. In all likelihood this will become quite a collectible piece and comes with a model # of 304.93.44.52.03.002 Blue Side of the Moon.
