TAG Heuer Carrera Astronomer hands-on – a unique take on the moon phase complication

Back at Geneva Watch Days, TAG Heuer unveiled a seriously cool addition to its Carrera family. The TAG Heuer Carrera Astronomer is a neat take on the moon phase complication, which expands it from a small sub-dial into the star of the show.

It's not quite to the same degree as something like a Christopher Ward C1 Moonphase, but certainly gives over more of the dial than most would. I recently got my hands on one to have a closer look.

First things first, let's talk about the design. There are three different colour options on offer, but each follows a similar design. The coloured sub-dial – or simply the outer edge of that sub-dial on the white and gold variant – offers large indices of the moon in different states, above a smaller dial which turns to show the position in the cycle.

That sits within a larger silver-toned dial, which itself sits within a matching minute track. The monochrome design is really rather fetching, and suits the sporty, dressy hybrid design a lot.

The design of the watch was inspired by John Glenn's Friendship 7 mission in 1962. That saw the astronaut become the first American to orbit the Earth, in a mission which lasted a little less than five hours.

Glenn undertook that trip with a modified Heuer stopwatch on his wrist, and this model is designed to honour that moment. You'll find a design on the caseback to that effect – looking out at the Earth through the flanks of a spaceship.

It wears superbly thanks to the 39mm case diameter, which sits nicely on my wrist. It's pretty much the perfect case size for most people, which makes it a solid choice from TAG.

Sitting 12.16mm tall also keeps things relatively slim. It does sit up a smidge – more than you'd expect of a dress watch, but no worse than most dive watches out there. It's certainly nothing to write home about.

What is worth shouting about is the price. At £4,150 / €4,900 / US$4,800 / AU$7,450, this offers some pretty compelling value in the luxury watch world.

It's a piece which is stylish and could easily be worn everyday, but which doesn't put the envelope in terms of price. I can see it being a popular pick.