You may love the Moonswatch models from Omega, but there are are alternatives, some with sapphire crystals, tritium gas tube lume and a chaoice of quartz of Miyota auto movements – which is a step up in quality.

The Xeric NASA Trappist range might look a little bit too Star Wars for you, but then again, perhaps you love the night time lume and the tribute to the 18th century Orerry; a mechanical represenation of the solar system, worth a google. It’s certainly different.

Inside the big 44mm case there is a Seiko VH31 series quartz movement, which offers reliable and accurate timekeeping. The dial design reminds us of a porthole from a space fighter of some sort, bit gimmicky, but it stands out.  The most impressive touches are the gently rotating minute hand, which looks like a moon circling the earth. It’s hypnotic to watch.

It’s worth watching the video on the Xeric site to understand the planetary ballet a bit more.

Extra dial colours this year include bright red, purple, orange, yellow and teal blue. All on pre-order now at $325 each. Tritium tube lume details as well add a luxury element that justifies the price.

That is a tad expensive we think, but maybe if space travel theme is your thing. no other watch comes close with all these details. It definitely has more features, more 2001 Space Odyssey cool than a Moonswatch made in er..in Switzerland, yeah Swiss made.

Here’s the word from Xeric;

“The Orbiting Planetary System consists of glowing Super-LumiNova™ indices and planets to help space explorers keep track of time as they travel in the darkest regions of the universe. The inner luminous planet represents the hours while the outer luminous planet shows the minutes, all while orbiting around the central axis. The constellation-like seconds hand sweeps across the dial similar to comets streaking across the night sky and once every minute it aligns to complete the Trappist-1 star map dial.”