Forget stars in your eyes, the new Omega Constellation lineup is putting them on the dial. While the Speedmaster may be best known for its interstellar adventures, the Constellation has always had celestial ties, with the name nodding to the observatory with eight stars originally found on the model’s caseback. The observatory itself is the Kew Observatory, where Omega won two chronometer records and six first-place awards between 1933 and 1952 (symbolised by the eight stars).
While originally released in 1952, the Omega Constellation as we know it today is the work of Carol Didisheim, a designer who joined Omega straight after completing her studies in jewellery design at the Geneva School of Decorative Arts. Didisheim designed the Constellation in its current iteration (known as the Constellation Manhattan) at the age of 26, with the timepiece known for eschewing a bezel in favour of four ‘claws’ at 3 and 9 o’clock (today, they’re largely decorative) which allowed the hour markers to be printed on the underside of the crystal, resulting in a slimmer case profile and improved water resistance.
Despite its long tenure, the Omega Constellation never quite took off in the same way as models like the Speedmaster and Aqua Terra, with the style rarely, if ever, spotted out in the wild. However, the latest additions to the collection just might change that. Leaning into the timepieces’ cosmic origins, the Swiss manufacture has added five new dial colours across four sizes; each of which is crafted from a real meteorite.
The specific source of the space rock is the Muonionalusta meteorite, known to be the oldest of its kind on earth. First discovered in 1906 near the village of Kitkiöjärvi in Sweden (but thought to be over 4.5 billion years old), the Muonionalusta meteorite is known for its Widmanstätten texture, an interesting cross-hatched pattern formed thanks to the rock’s slow cooling rate. The nature of, well…nature, means that each slice of rock (and therefore each dial) is unique.
The new Omega Constellation timepieces span 41mm, 29mm, 28mm, and 25mm case sizes; the former two are powered by an in-house automatic Co-Axial Master Chronometer calibre while the latter two are quartz. Now while silvery-grey is the typical shade of Muonionalusta, Omega has applied advanced colour treatment technology to allow for a variety of shade options, with a varied palette that includes blue, green, purple, rose gold, gold, and champagne.
The 41mm with a stainless steel case, grey dial, and black PVD treatment is set to appeal to the Speedmaster set, however we’d encourage looking beyond them. Despite their undeniably ‘dainty’ appearance, the 29mm variants boast just as much calibre-cred as their larger counterparts, albeit accompanied by a bevy of diamonds and a rounded date window. The Omega Constellation Meteorite 41mm is powered by the co-axial Omega 8900 (60 hours of power reserve), while the Omega Constellation Meteorite 29mm houses the co-axial Omega 8700 (50 hours of power reserve).
Both the 28mm and 29mm variants are kept ticking by the quartz Omega 4061, and boast a cleaner dial layout devoid of a date window.
The Omega Constellation Meteorite collection is priced from $14,025AUD (25mm steel model) to $70,400AUD (41mm moonshine gold).
Words by AR Staff
