A Watch for the Stars!
I will never not know where the moon is ever again!
Background
| I've been wearing a nice Citizen Dive Watch for about seventeen years before thinking I lost it a few weeks ago. Having only made about five dives in that period and having rotated through about a dozen telescopes in that same span, I decided to replace it the dive watch with an Astronomy Watch.
With work and parenting decimating my observing time, I was starting, to my chagrin, to lose track of the moon (generally between last quarter and a waxing crescent). Yes, there are apps and almanacs to keep track of that, but I was dropping the ball, that big shiny darkness-ruining ball. A watch that connected me with the Moon at all times was a high priority.
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Yes Watch - Astronomy Watch Review
"The Yes Watch changes your relationship with time" says its website. I found this intriguing, and, ultimately very true.
The Yes Watch bills itself as a lot of things, rightfully. It is a sophisticated world-wide solar and lunar computer programmed through 2099. It has a tremendous amount of data and functionality available from its dot matrix digital display, but I'll focus on its wonderful LCD Interface. I mean, it's cool that I know that it's 1205 days, 15 hrs 4 min and 10 seconds until my first solar eclipse starts (Idaho, Aug 21, 2017), but its the interface that makes this watch uniquely and instantly useful.
Yes Watches come in a variety of cases and bands, the interface comes in two flavors. The pictures in the review are of my WorldWatch II, which shares the same interface as the Zulu, Kundalina, Inca, and Cozmo watches:
The Yes Watch unique graphic interface shows the following information in a single glance:
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When facing South
- Rotating the watch so that the "day is level", the 24-hour hand points to the sun.
- Rotating the watch so that the Moonrise and Moonset are "level" and the 24-hour hand points to the moon. click Find the Moon w/ Yes Watch for details.
Looking at the watch over a period of days, you see:
- the moon phase waxing and waning
- the Moonrise and Moonset "ring" lag behind the sunrise and sunset
Observing the watch over a period of weeks, you see:
- The lengthening or shortening of the days - the seasonal changes to daylight proportion.
- Eight days out of the year (solstices, equinoxes and cross quarter days) you get a special display. Two days ago, my watch told me it was Beltane. I didn't know what it was; now I know).
These are the benefits the brilliantly-designed interface delivers with a simple glance - without having to touch any buttons.
Touching buttons provides the same celestial information as above through the LCD Interface for:
- Dual Time: get the same celestial information for any point on the globe.
- Time Calculator: get the same celestial information at any time through 2099.
If you want to dive in to the dot matrix digital readout, you get a wealth of information.
For example, a few hours before the Lunar Eclipse of April 15, 2014, I wanted to know what time the Eclipse Maximum was, but was away from the internet (heaven forbid!). "Oh, yeah: my Yes Watch knows!" Yes it did, and it was happy to tell me.
Pressing the upper right button shows the date, holding button kicks off a ton of precise information, including
City, Day of Year, Week, Latitude & Longitude, Solar and Lunar data, including rise, transit, and set times as well as New and Full Moon times and current percent illumination.
The User’s Manual is available on the Yes Website, so I won’t reproduce the other details.
Conclusion
Its uniquely intuitive and powerful interface, surrounded by a variety of models to suit your taste make the Yes Watch a beautiful and valuable full-time companion. There's nothing quite like it!