Introducing: Christiaan van der Klaauw × Revolution Planetarium Prometheus. Our latest collaboration is a 6-piece limited edition Christiaan van der Klaauw Planetarium, for the first time created in fully-polished Grade 5 titanium and fully lumed planets. Cast against an Aventurine dial, the masterpiece of science and spectacle puts the solar system on your wrist, offering a mesmerizing light show with the planets rendered in colored Super-Luminova. Read on to discover the story behind this collaboration.

There are few kinds of complications more beautiful than astronomical complications, to the extent that any attempt at describing them philosophically seems to do their scope and impact a disservice. While the basic building blocks for timekeeping are derived from natural cosmic rhythms — the rotation of the Earth on its axis around the Sun, and that of the Moon around the Earth — astronomical complications are a more explicit representation of these celestial phenomena. They simulate the rhythms and cycles of the cosmos, such as the phases of the Moon and the orbits of planets, naturally becoming a launchpad for any number of ruminations on the nature of time itself, our place in the world, and the vast, yet orderly and intelligible nature of the universe.

Undoubtedly, the most evocative and visually spectacular astronomical complications are planetaria. They provide a miniature, dynamic model of celestial mechanics, displaying the relative positions and motions of the planets in real time. Wristwatch planetariums are exceedingly rare and rarely kept in production. For our latest limited-edition, we have collaborated with the foremost exponent in the art — Christiaan van der Klaauw. The Planetarium Prometheus is not only equipped with the world’s smallest mechanical planetarium, displaying the real-time motion of six principal planets in our solar system, but also transforms into a theater of the night with the planets illuminated with Super-LumiNova.

Master of Astronomical Complications

While astronomical complications is something most watchmakers venture into at some point as a natural extension of their core focus, Christiaan van der Klaauw has the distinction of being the only watch company that has specialized in astronomical complications since the very beginning. Its namesake founder was born in Leiden, the same city in the Netherlands where the renowned scientist Christiaan Huygens began his studies in 1645. Leiden is also home to the Sterrewacht Leiden, the world’s oldest university observatory founded in 1633, where Van der Klaauw himself studied.

In 1974, Van der Klaauw founded his eponymous company. He began by creating highly ornate astronomical clocks and was later admitted to the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants (AHCI). In 1994, he unveiled his first astronomical wristwatch, the CVDK Satellite du Monde, and later in 1999, introduced the CVDK Planetarium, his most acclaimed wristwatch featuring the smallest mechanical planetarium in the world. His planetarium module would form the basis of the renowned Van Cleef & Arpels Midnight Planétarium Poetic Complication in 2014 and the Lady Arpels Planétarium in 2018.

All That Glitters in the Night Sky

The Planetarium Prometheus has a fully polished titanium case. It measures 40mm wide and due to the nature of the movement, which we will dive into in just a bit, it has a height of 14mm. While it appears thick yet compact on paper, its unusual height-to-width ratio can hardly be felt on the wrist due to its broad, solid lugs and the lightness of titanium. The watch has a classical officer-style case with a rounded caseband, welded lugs with screwed lug bars, and a prominent onion crown.

To evoke a star-studded night sky, the dial is made from aventurine glass. Aventurine glass is a glass that contains metallic inclusions, unlike the natural mineral aventurine, which is a type of quartz with natural inclusions such as mica, hematite or goethite. Aventurine glass was discovered by accident in the famous glass-blowing center of Murano in the 17th century. Its name originates from the Italian phrase “per avventura,” which translates to “by chance.” Interestingly, the name of this glass later inspired the name of the natural mineral aventurine, due to their similar glittery appearance.

The Rhodium-plated roman indexes, are applied from nine to three o’clock with the brand’s sun logo marking noon. At the top of the dial is a concentric calendar display where the date and month are indicated by co-axial hands. At the bottom is the marvelous miniature planetarium that displays the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn around the Sun in real time. Along the periphery is a ring with the day count for the year, along with the signs of the zodiac. The day count can be read with the Earth’s position while the constellation opposite Earth’s position would mark the zodiac sign visible in the night sky.

Miniaturization of the Cosmos

Mechanical planetariums date back to ancient times with the earliest known example being the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient Greek device discovered in a shipwreck off the coast of Antikythera, estimated to have been created between 200 B.C. and 150 B.C. This astonishingly sophisticated device, though not fully understood until advancements in technology, demonstrated early mechanical expertise in modeling astronomical movements, including the cycles of the planets, a prediction of eclipses, and most extraordinarily, accounting for the variable lunar cycle, approximately 1,805 years before Johannes Kepler decided to abandon Aristotle’s views and discovered that planetary orbits were not circular but elliptical.

The 18th century saw the emergence of the modern orrery, named after Charles Boyle, the 4th Earl of Orrery, who commissioned one of the earliest models from English instrument maker John Rowley. The Ulysse Nardin Planetarium Copernicus, introduced in 1988, was the earliest wristwatch to incorporate a planetarium, displaying the orbits of the six major planets and the Moon. The CVDK Planetarium, however, is much smaller with a planetarium spanning no more than 15mm and features the planets represented by spheres. Ultimately, you want a planetarium that is poetic, beautiful, and therefore, explicit in its representations of the planets.

The spheres in the Planetarium Prometheus are made of stainless steel that have been hand painted with Super-LumiNova, with a green luminous sphere in the center, representing the Sun. The relative sizes of the simulated planets are proportional to their actual sizes in the solar system, and their motions are depicted in real time. Mercury occupies the innermost orbit, completing a revolution in 87.97 days. Moving outward, the pace gradually decelerates — Venus follows with 224.70 days, then Earth, marking the passage of 365.24 days, followed by Mars with 686.98 days and Jupiter with 11.86 years and, on the farthest perimeter, is Saturn, which makes a complete revolution in 29.46 years. The module is entirely produced in-house at the brand’s workshop in Naarden. It comprises of 45 wheels with a total of 700 teeth which were cut by hand. What’s astonishing is that CVDK does not employ hobbing or profile turning machines commonly used to produce gears. Instead, each wheel is entirely handmade, echoing the same artisanal methods practiced by Van der Klaauw himself back in the day.

As no patent has been filed for the planetarium system, drawings of the module remain confidential. But it is reasonably straightforward when visualized. The entire module, beginning with the 12-hour wheel in the motion works, is a lengthy reduction gear train. The speed of the hour wheel is reduced to drive the date and month indicators for the calendar display above. It is then further reduced to produce the 88-day orbit for Mercury, which is where things get interesting.

The disks to which each planet is attached are actually gears themselves. Each gear has a raised periphery with teeth, and they are arranged concentrically on an arbor from the smallest to the largest wheel, like an inverted pyramid, with the largest wheel on top carrying Saturn. The wheels in this inverted pyramid are driven by an exact opposite gear train that is arranged on an arbor from the biggest to the smallest. The smallest and uppermost wheel in this stack drives the largest wheel carrying Saturn in the inverted pyramid. Each subsequent gear in this second stack is larger than the one above it, which results in slower rotational speeds for the larger gears in the stack. These larger gears, in turn, drive the smaller gears in the inverted pyramid and vice versa, increasing or decreasing their rotational speeds to simulate the varied orbital speeds of the planets in relation to the Sun. Due to the nature of these gears, featuring a raised periphery and a stacked formation, the module is thicker than standard dial-side modules, including perpetual calendars. However, it is a remarkably ingenious solution to account for the speeds of six planets while maintaining compactness.

The base caliber of the CVDK Planetarium was initially a TechnoTime automatic movement produced by Soprod, but the brand has since developed its own proprietary movement. While the fundamental wheel train arrangement is based on Andreas Strehler’s SA-30 movement, it has been heavily redesigned by CVDK, and is now produced, finished and assembled in-house. There are a total of seven stars adorning the bridges of the movement. Each wheel in the going train as well as the balance wheel is supported by an extended finger bridge that is tipped by a star to form a stylized depiction of a shooting star. The bridges are further decorated with a frosted star pattern achieved through laser engraving, while each star on the bridges is circular grained and the baseplate is finished with perlage.

Thanks to the elevations of the stars on the bridges, the polished countersinks for the jewels are deep. The rotor itself is striking. It echoes the brand’s sun logo with skeletonized claws made of gold-plated brass, while the weighted segment on the outer periphery is made of rhodium-plated tungsten. The combination of finishing creates a visually dense and stunning movement that feels cohesive. Notably, instead of traversing the center, the going train lies on the periphery of the baseplate. This frees up space in the middle for the gear train of the automatic winding system, which is an indication that the movement was intended to be slim. The balance wheel is free sprung with four regulating screws. The movement beats at 21,600vph (3Hz) and offers a power reserve of 60 hours.

The CVDK Planetarium, in its standard form, is already highly compelling both visually and mechanically, and there’s nothing quite like it anywhere else in the world today. The addition of planets that glow in the dark only makes it even more magical and provides a calming antidote to the fast-paced, trend-driven world of modern watch collecting. Whenever you need a lift, fire up that lume and behold as the universe bursts into a dazzling light show.

The Christiaan van der Klaauw × Revolution Planetarium Prometheus is priced at EUR 44,628 excluding tax.

Technical Specifications

Christiaan van der Klaauw × Revolution Planetarium Prometheus

Movement: Self-winding CVDK caliber with planetarium module; 60-hour power reserve
Functions: Hours, minutes, date, month, and mechanical planetarium showing the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn around the Sun
Case: 40mm; polished titanium; water resistant to 30m
Dial: Aventurine glass, rhodium-plated planetarium with luminescent coating; applied stainless steel Roman indexes
Strap: Black leather; folding clasp with CvdK logo
Price: EUR 44,628, excluding tax
Availability: Limited edition of six pieces