![]() The small second hand (located on the bottom sub-dial) measures how many seconds have passed since you started the timer. But others don't have a smaller hour hand on a separate sub-dial – as they're unable to record hours. The more complex chronograph designs can incorporate extra hands to measure even tenths of a second. And they're only activated when you press a button on the side. The smaller counterparts are located separately on three sub-dials (circles) of the watch face. Since the chronograph basically merges a stopwatch with a display watch – the key to understanding its use is knowing there are (usually) two sets of the three clock hands: the second hand, the minute hand, and the hour hand. Military, civilian & commercial aviation.Diving (to avoid getting caught up in bends).Horse/Car racing (Formula 1 drivers were known to sport popular chronographs).A few days later, the world watched as the crew returned home safely.Ĭhronographs nowadays are used in a lot of professions and activities: But that required precise timing – to turn on the engine and realign the capsule – for a safe re-entry.īut the men pulled it off…thanks to the Omega Speedmaster watches they wore on their wrists. The crew could survive by letting the moon's gravitation push them back to Earth. Engines malfunctioned and nearly everything was out of power (including onboard computers). That surely came in handy when the spacecraft suffered an explosion along the way. In 1970, the story of how chronographs saved the lives of crew members aboard the Apollo 13 happened.īefore they began their trip to the moon, President Eisenhower had ordered all astronauts and test pilots to wear chronographs.It was known as the “Chrono-matic” which could wind itself through an off-center micro rotor. A number of watch companies collaborated with movement expert Dubois Depraz to develop an automatic (self-winding) chronograph.Watch manufacturer Heuer (now called Tag Heuer) introduced chronographs with a rotating bezel tachymeter – a tool for measuring speed in terms of any unit of distance.Chronographic watches peaked in popularity, and along came the following breakthroughs: He was commissioned do so by King Louis XVIII – who had been a fan of horse races and wanted to know the exact time each race lasted.įlash-forward to the second half of the 20th century. It was designed to help with astronomical equipment.īut things changed in 1821 when watchmaker Nicolas Mathieu Rieussec (known in France as “ Watchmaker to the King”) built the first commercially available chronograph. In the year 1815, Louis Moinet invented the first chronograph device. Only the early versions made use of actual writing – their dials would be marked with a small pen based on how much time had elapsed in a given situation. The chronograph is a fancy word for stopwatch these days. It combines the Greek words “chronos” (time) and “graph” (writing) to describe a sophisticated way of using time.
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