The Carrera is a classic for a reason. Tag Heuer’s heritage racing watch has everything you want from a trackside staple including the requisite tachymeter and a kind of automotive style that ranges from glassbox retro to performance-flavoured carbon. You know what a racing watch does not need? A moonphase. Which is why I’m surprised just how much I like the Tag Heuer Carrera Astronomer.
Now, there’s a chance you’ll have spotted this particular piece before launch – at least, if you’ve been obsessively poring over the GPHG nominations this year. Due to timings, Tag Heuer actually submitted the Astronomer for consideration before it was officially released to the world. That’s a pretty big swing and one I feel the Astronomer deserves.
As you might have guessed from the name – and can plainly see – the focal point here is the new moonphase complication. Unless you’re Andreas Strehler or IWC, a moon phase isn’t the most complicated er, complication in the world. It’s essentially a second date disc with a picture of a moon on an approximately 29 day cycle. However, Tag Heuer’s take on it switches things up.
It’s not necessarily a more complicated approach. There’s no million-year accuracy here. But instead of the moon moving, all the information is given via a twin-pointed hand and a cosmologically accurate chart that looks like something from the early days of naval navigation. Across the top you have pictures of the various phases of the moon while underneath you have those phases designations – new to full to new. When one end of the hand points at a lunar pictogram, the other end tells you precisely what phase that is. It’s a moonphase for dummies. In the middle you also have the days of the lunar month, so the complication doubles as a rough date display. Rough, of course, because lunar cycles and months don’t quite marry up.
I honestly love this approach to the moonphase. It’s far, far more interesting than the usual golden moon painted on aventurine. Yes, it serves the exact same function – which is to say, not much of one (unless you’re a sailor, you don’t need to know the phases of the moon) – but it turns it into a dominating feature of the watch. In fact, it takes up most of the dial, with the Carrera’s speedometer-esque numerals taking up the rest. All of that is wrapped up in a svelte, 39mm stainless steel case that, with a nod to its sporty ancestry, has 100m water resistance.
So why a moonphase? Well, Tag Heuer’s own line is that it’s a tribute to John Glenn’s modified Heuer stopwatch on NASA’s Friendship 7 spacecraft back in 1962, but honestly, I reckon they just developed a new movement and had to use it somewhere. Whatever the reasoning, the new Calibre 7 is a beauty.
With a 56-hour power reserve it’s not quite up there with the weekend-proof in-house calibres we’re starting to get very used to but having seen through many a Tag Heuer exhibition caseback, I can assume it’s a nicely finished movement too. Though there’s no knowing for sure here as instead we have a solid caseback, engraved with the moon as viewed from an observatory. It’s a nice little depiction, even if it does feel like it’s stepping on the well-shod toes of Omega’s Constellation.
There are three different variations of the Carrera Astronomer in this little capsule release. The first two are a high-contrast black-and-white like a one-eyed panda and a retro bi-colour version in silver and rose gold. Both come on 60s style beads of rice bracelets, which I love, particularly the bi-colour with it’s rose gold central link. But they, despite their gorgeous bracelets, are not the stars of this celestial show.
As you might have guessed from our Christopher Ward Shoreline collaboration (which I’ll stop harping on about one day), I’m a big fan of grey with blue(ish) highlights and that’s precisely what you get with the third, leather-strapped Carrera Astronomer we have here. It’s not as stark as the black and feels a lot more modern than the bi-colour. In fact, it feels more low-key modern than anything else in Tag Heuer’s current collection – at least those without lashings of carbon fibre or skeletonisation.
The addition of a bit of colour to the moonphase also elevates it as a feature, both during the day with that soft green-blue and at night where it and the numerals turn ghostly with Super-LumiNova. The solid grey strap just emphasises the monochromatic cool of the entire thing, making it the most everyday wearable of the three. That’s also helped by the fact that this particular colourway tones down the moon phase a little and makes it feel less visually busy.
So, while all three models are great additions to the Carrera line-up, the grey is the one I would buy myself. In fact, it’s the only one I’d buy as otherwise I’d be constantly comparing the other two against the one that got away. The downside is that the grey (along with the bi-colour) is a limited edition of 500 pieces. Tag Heuer being the brand they are, they’ll sell out, though perhaps not so quickly you can’t jump in now and grab one.
As for price, all three versions, the limited-edition pair and the non-limited black-and-white will set you back CHF 6,900, just under £6,400. This might be the only time I’ve ever been tempted by a moon phase, even if that does feel just a little steep. But then, so does every new watch I want to buy for the sole reason that I want to buy them.
I guess we’ll see what the GPHG academy thinks of it.
Price and Specs:
More details at Tag Heuer.
