The F.P. Journe Centigraphe Souveraine is a pretty incredible piece of haute horlogerie.  Looking to time a nice stroll through the park? Or, 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 both, thanks to an exceptional manually wound chronograph movement (naturally an exclusive development of Francois-Paul Journe). 

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; because of this unique hand and the 100th second calibration of its tachymeter, you can actually time something that is moving at 360,000 kilometers per hour! ( Put another way, that’s 1/3000th the speed of light!) 

Even though your reflexes most likely won’t be able to take advantage of that, it’s nonetheless quite the fascinating feature.  The other dials, complete their revolutions in 20seconds and 10 minutes respectively, and offer a range of corresponding timing options which extend the range of chronograph usefulness to a great degree.

Like other F.P. Journe watches, such as the magnificent Sonnerie Souveraine or the Chronometre Resonance, Francois-Paul’s ever-inventive genius defines every technical element of the movements design.  Everything from the disengagement feature in the flying seconds complication (which allows this hand to be stopped anywhere along its path), to an system which isolates the chronograph from the time display (which keeps amplitude stable irrespective of whether the chrono is switched on, or off) reflects the philosophy of Francois-Paul Journe: to follow in the footsteps of historical masters who advanced the science and art of watchmaking in equal measure.