Récital 20 Astérium

The Récital 20 Astérium (the sky seen from the earth) is a key timepiece in BOVET's collection of Astronomical Complications, which also includes the Récital 18 Shooting Star (the earth with 24 time zones seen from the sky) and the Récital 22 Grand Récital (Tellurium).

Housed in BOVET’s trademarked Writing Slope case, in this unique piece with a combination of 18K white and 18K red gold, the Astérium really puts this spectacular movement on full display — and what a movement it is.

Where should we start?

How about with the most visual aspect of the timepiece? Front and center is the night sky map of the stars and constellations, which are laser-engraved and then filled with Super-LumiNova on a dome of translucent blue quartz -- functional, precise and intuitive all at once. To ensure utmost realism, the highest stars in the sky are depicted at the top of the dome while the lowest stars nearer the horizon appear on the periphery of the display aperture.

Added to this is a sidereal calendar. The duration of a complete Earthly orbit (known as a sidereal year) is 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes and 9.77 seconds, or an unchanging 365.25 days. For obvious reasons, the Gregorian calendar was obliged to round down the number of days in a year to 365 and added an extra day every four years, (the leap year) to compensate for the remaining time. The calendars usually employed in watchmaking are all based on the Gregorian calendar, but the use of this calendar to drive the night sky would result in a significant cumulative error when displaying the equation of time.

The night sky and the collection of sidereal indications on the Astérium® are for this reason governed by an annual calendar calculated on a 365.25-day cycle to reflect the real duration of one full terrestrial orbit. Thanks to this combination of display and horological exactitude, the instantaneous position of the stars in the sky is displayed with unrivalled precision.