page_title: Omega Marine Chronometer
section_title: Early development
hierarchical_section_title: Omega Marine Chronometer / Early development
caption_attribution_description: English: Omega Constellation Megaquartz F2.4 prototype, calibre 1500
context_page_description: The Omega Marine Chronometer was the first quartz wristwatch ever to be awarded certified status as a marine chronometer. The watch was made by Omega SA and developed by John Othenin-Girard and is one of the most accurate non thermo-compensated production watches ever made, keeping time to within 1 second per month
context_section_description: The first prototypes of the ‘1500 family’ quartz watch (which later developed into the Marine Chronometer) were presented at the Basel Fair in 1970 as calibre 1500, developed by Omega and the Battelle Geneva Research Institute. Known as the ‘Elephant’, there are rumored to have been only five examples of this watch made by Omega.
  The calibre 1500 ‘Elephant’ (known so because of the design of the movement with two large battery compartments resembling large ears) boasted an accuracy of 12 seconds per year, which equated to 1 second per month, five times more accurate than the beta 21 (the first Swiss production quartz watch) introduced to the market the year previous. The calibre 1500 was Omega’s first in-house quartz movement developed under project leader John Othenin-Girard by SSIH.
  The development of the calibre 1500 and subsequent successors cost Omega 30 million Swiss Francs with the sole intention to produce a wristwatch of unparalleled accuracy and performance.  This significantly improved performance in time keeping was to be achieved by the development of a circular quartz resonator that vibrated at 2,359,356 times per second, by comparison the Beta 21 quartz resonator (which as a watch had an accuracy of 5 seconds per month) vibrated at 8192 times per second. The lenticular crystal oscillator in the calibre 1500, 1510, 1511 and 1516 was developed in the UK and used solely in the Megaquartz calibre 2400 series.
  The five calibre 1500 watches produced achieved the required 1 second per month accuracy through a stable (non thermo compensated) quartz resonator as part of an integrated circuit which divided the huge frequency to produce pulses which ran the electromagnetic motor.  These watches were the first to feature a time zone adjuster, which allowed the hour to be adjusted without interfering with the minute or second hand, this is a feature,  followed through into the production watch alongside the later introduction of a second trimmer.
  The design of the calibre 1500 was modular, which translated into the production watch, however the movement design and layout of the final calibre 1511 and subsequent calibre 1516 was completely different. One of the major flaws of the calibre 1500 was battery consumption (from the twin cells), although untested until recently when one of the prototypes came to market as a running watch in 2011. The owner, Omega collector Thomas Dick, tested the watch and concluded that the battery life of the twin (344) cells was approximately 5 weeks, however the accuracy when bench tested was 0.03 seconds per day, still equating to 12 second per year.
  There were numerous other prototypes of the calibre 1510 watches, most of which were around case design, there are a number in private hands as well as a selection of prototype case designs and dial variations at the Omega museum in Bienne, Switzerland. These prototype watches were no calibre variations but alternative designs for cases and dials which ultimately led to the production watch.
caption: OMC prototype 1
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