At $ 250,000, you probably won’t be able to afford the new Midnight Planetarium watch from Van Cleef and Arpels, but you will be able to enjoy this beautiful video of it for free:

As described by pocket-lint:

Not only is it encased in 18ct rose gold and sport double sapphire crystals, it features six of the planets of our solar system orbiting the Sun in real time.

Each of those planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – is itself represented with a precious stone. Aventurine, serpentine, chloromelanite, turquoise, red jasper, blue agate and sugilite have been employed to double as the planets and stars. The Sun is a similar rose gold to the frame.

The strap is made of alligator leather, but beyond the materials used, it is the mechanism inside that is truly spectacular. As each planet orbits the Sun in real time, that means some of them move very slowly indeed. For example, while it will take just three months for Mercury to complete an orbit, Saturn will take 29-and-a-half years.

You can see why Van Cleef & Arpels has stopped at Saturn. Uranus takes 84 years to complete an orbit, while Pluto takes 248. There’s little point having a dial on a watch that you are unlikely to ever see rotate.

The Grande Heure GMT from Jaquet Droz has two hands, but both of them are hour hands.

From the description:

Never before has a watch presented such a clear, effortless indication of two time zones. This technological development is enhanced by the majestic hands in the form of a compass, a detail which hints at the navigational instruments used by sailors of another era. The red hand indicates local time while the blued steel hand shows the time at the destination. When the two hands come together in the same time zone they merge into a single, bicolored indication of the exact time.

How much does it cost? Well, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. (About $25,000, I think.)

I noticed that Mr Jones also made this 24-hour watch, the Average Days model, reminiscent of the Swatch watch, which had the similar idea of showing what you’re up to at different times of the day:

The dial of this watch visualises statistical research into how the average person spends their time. The slot on the hour-disc shows what the average person is doing at that time of the day. You can see at any time how you measure up to this notional individual. 

Professor Jonathan Gershuny, the Director of the Centre for Time Use Research provided us with an updated and customised data set for the activities mapped to the different times of the day for this watch.

It’s another limited edition, so hurry!