Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch Professional 42 mm (hesalita) 310.30.42.50.01.001«Moonwatch»

Imagen: Omega, web oficial

The storyWhy this reference matters

The Speedmaster started life in 1957 as a motor-racing chronograph, reference CK2915, with the tachymetre scale on the bezel instead of printed on the dial — a novelty at the time. Nobody designed it with space in mind. It was NASA that qualified it for manned flight in 1965, after putting it through a run of brutal tests, and on 21 July 1969 it ended up on Buzz Aldrin's wrist on the Moon. The asymmetric case that shields the crown and pushers arrived in 1964.

The calibre 1861 sat inside from 1997 and nobody dared touch it: changing the Moonwatch's engine was playing with fire. In 2021 Omega did it anyway. In came the 3861, with a Co-Axial escapement, a silicon hairspring, resistance to 15,000 gauss and METAS Master Chronometer certification. Jewels went from 18 to 26, the power reserve from 48 to 50 hours. It is still hand-wound, because anything else would have been a betrayal.

The odd thing is that the update looked backwards. The dial regained the stepped profile the Speedmaster had lost forty-six years earlier, with the outer minute track sitting on a lower plane than the rest. The bezel got its dot over the 90 back — the one collectors hunt for on sixties examples — along with the diagonal dot beside the 70. New engine inside, the styling wound back on the outside.

SpecificationsThe numbers, in one table

IdentificationHow to tell it apart

This reference, 310.30.42.50.01.001, is the Hesalite version on a steel bracelet. Its sapphire twin is the 310.30.42.50.01.002, and the crystal is not the only difference. The Hesalite has a printed Omega logo on the dial and a solid case back with the seahorse medallion; the sapphire one has an applied metal logo and shows the movement from behind.

The Hesalite has a signature of its own: an Omega logo etched into the centre of the crystal, all but invisible until you tilt the watch. Then look at the bezel — dot over the 90, diagonal dot beside the 70. Neither marking was on the 1861 Moonwatch, so the two of them date the watch at a glance.

The numbers: 42 mm across, 13.54 mm thick, 47.50 mm lug to lug, 20 mm between the lugs and 50 metres of water resistance. The 2021 bracelet tapers to 15 mm at the clasp against 18 mm on the old one, which is the fastest way to tell the generations apart in a side-on photograph.

CollectingWhat collectors check

Scratches on the Hesalite frighten first-time buyers and they should not. Ten minutes with plexiglass polishing paste and a cloth and they are gone — it is the one watch crystal you can fix at the kitchen table. What does matter is that there are no cracks and no lifted edge, because then it needs replacing, and the water resistance depends on how well that crystal sits.

The chronograph checks are the usual ones. The pushers should click crisply, and the central seconds hand should start without jumping and return to exactly twelve when you reset it. If it shudders on stopping, or settles a hair off the mark on reset, the heart cam or the clutch needs attention. And since it is hand-wound, wind it slowly and stop the moment you feel resistance: forcing the end of the wind is the silliest and most expensive fault this watch suffers.

On versions: the previous Moonwatch, the 1861 one, is a good deal cheaper second-hand and still has its following, but it carries no METAS certification and will not shrug off a magnetic field. If you buy the 3861, ask for the Master Chronometer card — it is part of what you are paying for. And make your mind up early between Hesalite and sapphire, because changing it later means changing watches.

Common questionsWhat people ask us about this reference

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Close relativesThe ones it gets confused with