The F.P. Journe Centigraphe Souverain is a pretty incredible piece of haute horlogerie. a first and foremost the creme de la creme of chronographs.

“Perhaps you have super-human reflexes and would like to measure the speed of an asteroid caroming through the atmosphere?” With the Centigraphe, you can do that, thanks to an exceptional manually wound chronograph movement

This complex mechanism features three subdials, each of which are marked with a time scale, and a tachymeter.

Triggering the rocker switch on the right side of the watch sets the hands into motion–at this moment, the immediate attention getter is the red foudroyante “flying-seconds” hand at left, which travels around its scale once each second;

Combined with the tachometer scales, being able to measure intervals of 1/100th second makes it theoretically possible to time something moving at 360,000 kilometers per hour! Even though your reflexes most likely won’t be able to take advantage of that, it’s nonetheless quite the fascinating feature.