The Slow Mo Guys show how an Omega Speedmaster Dark Side of the Moon works in amazing, slow-mo macro

Borna Bošnjak

Here’s a spot of watch spotting that we usually don’t get the chance to do. Gavin, from the YouTube channel The Slow Mo Guys, features the last-generation Omega Speedmaster Apollo 8 Dark Side of the Moon in his latest video. But rather than showing it off on his wrist, he gives it the full Slow Mo Guys treatment, showing off the Speedy’s intricacies in stunning slow motion, courtesy of two different Phantom cameras and a whole array of macro lenses, going all the way to the microscopic at 50x magnification.

Now, there’s not much in terms of unexpected twists or spoilers to fear here. It’s just pure watch nerdgasm enabled by one of the pioneers of slow-mo footage on YouTube. What’s astonishing is how much more tangible the physics of the movement are at ultra-high magnification. If you just looked down at a movement, you’d simply see it ticking away, doing its thing.

But look closer – at the zoom level of a single gear tooth meshing with another – and you’ll see how much precision needed to go into the engineering of a movement to have them interact perfectly each time. Most fascinating to me was how close you need to look to find the otherwise imperceptible jitters of the second wheel as it’s (microscopically) propelled forward by the seconds-carrying third wheel that’s directly locked and unlocked by the movement of the escape wheel.

And this is actually one of those rare experiments that you can try at home. Granted, you’ll need to put aside US$14,300 for a new Apollo 8 Speedy, about $150k for a Phantom TMX, and only $1,500 for the Laowa lens kit (which is surprisingly affordable), with cash to spare for an insane lighting and studio set-up. Chapeau to anyone who gives it a go, but I think I’ll limit my own at-home experiments to making oobleck.