russell996
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Ulysse Nardin Tellurium - Johannes Kepler. Platinum Cloisonné enamel Perpetual World Time.
Incoming: Platinum Cloisonné enamel Tellurium by Ulysse Nardin - part of ‘The Trilogy of Time’ collection.
Introduced in 1992 as the final piece in the Trilogy series designed by Ludwig Oechslin, this has long been on my radar and at last is now a treasured part of my collection. This particular piece is part of a limited edition of 99 produced in platinum featuring a Cloisonné enamel dial of the earth viewed from above the North Pole.
The piece boasts a wonderful array of complications:
World Time
Perpetual
Moon Phase
Real time view of the position of the moon relative to the Earth and Sun
Sunrise and Sunset indication
Solar and Lunar eclipse indication
Real time view of the areas of the earth experiencing daylight and nighttime
As with many Ulysse Nardin’s the dial is a work of art, the Tellurium revived the art of Cloisonné enamelling with each Earth dial taking more than fifty hours of work by a craftsman. 
Ulysse Nardin Tellurium - Johannes Kepler. Platinum Cloisonné enamel Perpetual World Time.
Incoming: Platinum Cloisonné enamel Tellurium by Ulysse Nardin - part of ‘The Trilogy of Time’ collection. Introduced in 1992 as the final piece in the Trilogy series designed by Ludwig Oechslin, this has long been on my radar and at last is now a treasur...
Tellurium continued....
The dial is constructed from a series of concentric rings. 12 o’clock position represents the Sun and has a blue enamel sun motif on the case. The central Cloisonné enamel Earth rotates anti-clockwise over a 24 hour period with the time on the Cloisonné e...
Tellurium continued .....
Solar eclipses Movement of Earth and moon and eclipses resulting Seasonal movement Tellurium prototype My thanks for much of the information and the illustrations above go to Dr Marcus Hanke, author of the book ‘The Trilogy of Time’ which is still availab...
It is a wonderful piece
I’ve only picked up the Tellurium rather than the Trilogy but nonetheless I’m very pleased. It is a large piece at 43mm but whereas back in 1992 when it was first introduced that was pretty oversize these days it is almost standard.
Big big congrats for this technically impressive timepiece but poetic too with its amazing enamel dial
Thanks for your very detailed report too. Enjoy and wear this very rare timepiece in the best of your health. Best wishes Alkiro
Great post of a spectaculair watch imo 👌🏻😘
Huge Congrats and wear it in best of health
Hi Russell, thank you so much for this post and the explanation on its function. After reading the posts a couple time, I have concluded that...
I am lousy in science but fully appreciate what this watch can do and find it extremely romantic ! Love is blind ? LOL ! Enjoy this unique (especially given the enamel dial) watch often ! Cheers, Gordon
Hi Gordon, thank you. I have to say I did read the excellant book
that was produced to accompany the trilogy pieces several times before receiving my piece - written by our own Dr Marcus Hanke. 👍 Should anyone wish to get a proper explanation of each of the trilogy pieces there is an online version if the book in PDF fo...
Thanks again Russell ! I need to....
hire a science tutor to help me understand all the functions and graphs ! If you ever come to Asia, please may we have a GTG with this scientific instrument ? Cheers, Gordon
Hi Mitch, cracking the code to me will be more challenging than cracking the...
DaVincci code ! LOL ! Suggest we have much wine to assist in this Tellurium in-depth study GTG. I suspect your science background will help you learn much faster.
Great idea...count me in as long as, during the lesson, we have lots of ...
wine and food to inspire imagination and enhance deeper understanding !
What is amazing is actually how easy it is to read everything at a glance.
Local Time. 👍 GMT time 👍 Date 👍 Astrological sign 👍 Moon phase 👍 Relative position of moon and earth 👍 Area of earth in sunlight 👍 Sunrise and sunset timing 👍 And of course when it a New Moon or Full moon whether it is also a Solar or Lunar eclipse respec...
Thanks Mitch for writing the "i" in ...
"unifocused" to describe me, otherwise I would be "unfocused" ! Or was the "i" a typo ? LOL !
A dream piece indeed.
One of my long term favourites but has always been out of reach until now.
Amazing piece.
Maybe a bit too complicated for my small brain, I am still trying to figure out how to read it.
It is actually surprisingly simple to read.
Time is obvious, but once you get the idea of the sun being at 12 o'clock the moon phase and sunrise and sunset indictors make perfect sense. The Earth rotates once a day, sunrise shown at 3 o'clock and sunset at 9 o'clock. The moon circles the Earth once...
Well done Russell!
A most clever watch and it was considered almost unattainable when it was first released so I am glad to see you have managed to add such a lovely piece to your collection. One could gaze at that dial for a long time......
A wonderful dial indeed.
I will try to get some photos next to my 5131R for comparison, the cloisonné Earth is slightly larger on the Tellurium I think.
It is quite interesting then
that despite the complexity of the Tellerium and its relative exclusitivity compared to the 5131R that used prices of the latter are substantially higher than the under rated Telleerium.
Well, supposing it
was a Patek Philippe Tellurium Johannes Kepler and rather than re-introducing Cloisonné enamel for the 5131J in 2006 they had done it in 1992.
No contest to me :-)
The Patek wins in terms of wearability as it is 39.5mm but the UN triumphs in all other areas. And please don't get me wrong, I am a big Patek fan! What do you think Russell if you had to choose only one?!
Signature of UN bygone era...
and a dream of many... me including Big congrats on this amazing piece and thanks for very nice and informative post Cheers D
Thank you for this wonderful and informative article.
The Tellerium is a work of of art both technically and aesthetically, since UN enamel dials have always been among the best out there. As you said despite the great amount of information on the dial the readability is quite good. This is for sure many col...
I see IN like a world of its own.
They mix extremely sporty watches with some very elegant piece and gran d complications. They are very particular but I like their soul. Best.
Until now it is difficult to find a standard volume on modern watchmaking ...
... without a picture of at least one Trilogy watch. The fact that such "esoteric" complications could be integrated into a wristwatch and successfully be sold on a difficult market was groundbraking for the development of the contemporary watch industry....
Well I can recommend this excellent book.
You might be familiar. Volume 1 of the Hodinkee magazine features the Tellurium in an article about the history of astronomical complications. Nice quote: “The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so ri...
By pure coincidence, I happened to read that book ...
Thank you kindly for the compliments! To be honest, I was not really happy with the small font used on that second edition, that made the book more difficult to read, imho. But this is only a very minor issue. There are a few books dedicated to complicate...
