Omega pleased a lot of dress watch and vintage fans this week when they launched the new Constellation Observatory collection at their Swiss headquarters. Zach Weiss is on the ground in Bielle even as we speak getting hands-on with the new watches, and he’ll have a full hands on report with his own photography coming soon. For now, a quick rundown of the new collection, and why it’s a fairly major play for the brand.
The Constellation is a historic Omega collection that has changed a lot through the years, always remaining flexible with the current styles and trends of the day. This collection, though, is a direct shot at the hearts and minds of Omega purists, as its effectively a recreation of the original 1950s Constellation in its broad strokes. The cases and dials will be familiar to anyone who has collected or admired original Constellations, with highly angular cases and distinctive dogleg lug design.
That said, these are not one to one recreations of watches from the 1950s. The cases, on paper at least, are rather large for what most would agree is a riff on a classic dress watch. The diameter is 39.4mm, and case height is 12.23mm. The lug to lug span comes in at 47.2mm. So, not small by any means, but we’ll look forward to Zach’s impressions of how they actually wear soon enough.
As is typical with Omega these days, we have a wide variety of case material and dial options available. We get all three gold alloys that Omega likes to deploy (Sedna, Canopus, and Moonshine), as well as a Platinum-Gold option and four dial variants in O-MEGASTEEL, which is still one of the funniest names for a steel alloy you’ll ever come across. Dial options on the steel watches include green, navy, silver and a black dial in glossy ceramic. Collectors will likely be excited that these dials have the classic pie-pan design, complete with grooves along the perimeter of most variants (not the black ceramic), a great Art Deco inspired detail.
Steel models run on the Calibre 8914, and precious metal pieces on the caliber 8915. These movements are identical except for the “Grand Luxe” finishing on the 8915, which includes a gold rotor and enameled Observatory medallion. But what’s really notable about these movements, and what makes the new Constellation collection genuinely historic, is that these are the first watches to be METAS Master Chronometer certified without a running seconds hand. The Laboratoire de Précision, the independent certification body founded by Omega in 2023 and certified by METAS to test watches to their standards, has developed new testing technology that measures movement acoustics and tracks the hour and minute hands optically. This is a potentially big leap if the technology is adopted elsewhere and put to use by other brands. It’s also fitting that the technology debuts in the Constellation, which has its roots in observatory timing competitions that helped to push Omega’s chronometry forward at a pivotal time for the brand and industry.
Pricing for these watches runs a large gamut because of the use of steel and precious metal. The steel references are priced at $10,900, except for the black ceramic dial option, which will run $12,200. The Sedna and Moonshine gold watches are priced at $37,900 on a strap, while the Canopus gold is $44,000 and Platinum Gold is $57.800 (also both on straps). The range tops out with a Moonshine Gold variant on a matching gold bracelet, which will set you back $59,100.
The new Constellation references are available through Omega retailers now. More information at Omega’s website here.
Zach Kazan
2026-03-27 13:00:00