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Grade 2 titanium field watch. Foil dial.

A dial made from satellite skin.

  • Hand-finished dials
  • Made to order
  • Assembled in USA
  • $450–599

Aluminized polyimide.

The amber insulation from the outside of spacecraft, finished by hand and sealed under sapphire. No two fold the same way, so no two dials are alike.

Grade 2 titanium field watch. Foil dial.

A dial made from satellite skin.

Photograph of the finished dial: aluminized foil under sapphire, the light broken into facets across its folds.

01 Dial

Aluminized polyimide.

The amber insulation from the outside of spacecraft, finished by hand and sealed under sapphire. No two fold the same way, so no two dials are alike.

Seiko NH38.

A Japanese automatic. No date, so the foil runs uninterrupted.

The caseback of the finished watch, held in one hand: CONTACT LIGHT arced over an engraved lunar module, with PERIGEE, AUTOMATIC, TITANIUM and the 200 m rating around the rim.

02 Caliber

Seiko NH38.

A Japanese automatic. No date, so the foil runs uninterrupted.

The watch

Contact Light

39 mm Grade 2 titanium. Sapphire, anti-reflective coated. $450–599, expected

The PERIGEE Contact Light photographed on a white sweep: a 39 mm Grade 2 titanium case with a gold foil dial, dark baton markers and a black strap.
The first finished watch, photographed. Every dial is finished by hand, and no two fold the same way.

PERIGEE

Contact Light

A 39 mm Grade 2 titanium field watch. The dial is real aluminized polyimide, the foil used on the outside of spacecraft, finished by hand and sealed under sapphire. The creases and folds fall differently every time, so no two are alike.

“Contact light” was the call from Apollo 11, the instant the lander’s probe touched the Moon.

$450–599

Expected price. Nothing is charged today.

Dial
Aluminized polyimide MLI, hand-finished, perimeter-bonded
Case
39 mm Grade 2 titanium
Crystal
Sapphire, anti-reflective coated
Movement
Seiko NH38, a Japanese automatic
Water resistance
200 m (20 bar), case rating
Assembly
Assembled in USA
Edition
Made to order, numbered by hand
Case dimensions
Diameter
39 mm, excluding crown
Thickness
12 mm
Lug to lug
48.6 mm
Strap width
20 mm
Crown
Screw-down

Dimensions are the case maker’s. The water rating is for a sealed case: I open every one by hand to fit its dial and reseal it, so treat it as a case rating, not a tested depth. Specification may change before the first run ships.

Join the waiting list

Orders open Summer 2026. Every watch is made to order, one dial at a time. Leave your email and I'll write once, when they open.

  • Made to order, one dial at a time
  • Assembled in the USA
  • Sold only on this site

The rest of it

Where the dial comes from.

The foil is not a finish or a print. It is the same insulation that wraps spacecraft, bought off an aerospace roll, then cut, folded and bonded by hand. Here is what that means, and how a dial gets made out of it.

The Webb telescope's gold sunshield, fully deployed in a cleanroom.
Film 01 · Webb sunshield, last full deploy on Earth · NASA GSFC, 2021

02 · The foil

The foil.

Each dial starts as a sheet of aluminized polyimide, the amber-gold multi-layer insulation that wraps spacecraft. The film on this page is NASA's own.

Technicians smoothing a gold insulation blanket onto the underside of the Sentinel-6B spacecraft.
Film 02 · Blanketing Sentinel-6B before launch · NASA KSC, 2025

The foil is cut oversize, then folded.

  1. 01 Cut

    The foil comes off an aerospace roll and is cut oversize, mirror side down.

  2. 02 Fold

    Folded by hand until the surface holds a grain. Too far and it creases; not far enough and it reads flat.

  3. 03 Bond

    Perimeter-bonded with a low-outgassing acrylic adhesive, so no glue shows through the front.

  4. 04 Seal

    Trimmed to the dial blank and sealed under sapphire.

1972 television footage of the Apollo 17 lunar module lifting off from the Moon.
Film 03 · Apollo 17 leaves the Moon, rover camera · NASA, December 14, 1972

04 · Datasheet

Genuine aluminized polyimide.

Material
Aluminized polyimide film, the multi-layer insulation that wraps spacecraft in orbit.
Film
1-mil to 2-mil (0.025-0.05mm), aerospace surplus stock.
Metallization
Vacuum-deposited aluminum, one side only.
Service temp
Rated roughly -269°C to +400°C.
Color
The gold is the film itself. Aluminum faces inward, reflecting light back through it.
Why crinkled
Real MLI is crinkled so each layer barely touches the next, cutting conductive contact between them. Ours is made the same way. The creases and folds fall differently every time, so no two dials match.

The foil is cut, folded, bonded and marked by hand in the United States, one dial at a time, and every watch is assembled here. No two dials come out the same, because the creases and folds never fall the same way twice.

The blank under the foil, the case and the movement are all bought in. The movement is Japanese. The work on top of them is mine.