Accurist Greenwich Meridian 2000 Countdown Watch

As it is the end of 2012, I felt it was time for a watch with a countdown timer.

In fact, with this watch, it has the right type of timer, as it's designed to count down the time to a given date!

The watch is by Accurist, and is the Greenwich Meridian year 2000 countdown watch.

Accurist is a British watch company that started in London in the 1940s. They have been the official sponsors of the Speaking Clock, and official timekeepers for various events. In 1997, they built a satellite controlled clock in Greenwich on the meridian line, accurate to a ten millionth of a second to count-down to the new millennium.

This watch was released sometime around that time, and has a face which resembles the official countdown clock. The LCD display has 3 lines (date and day, time, and seconds (along with the Accurist name)). Down the middle is a line representing where the meridian line passes though the countdown clock.

One of the main modes is the countdown timer. To operate this, you set the date and year you want to count to, and the timer display then shows the time until that day starts (days on top, hours and minutes on the middle, and seconds on the bottom). There is also a regular alarm mode as well, and the watch has an electro-luminescent backlight.

The back of the watch has 'Greenwich Meridian 2000' written in the middle, and the 000 is written as 0°0'0" to represent the prime meridian at 0 longitude (0 degrees, 0 minutes, and 0 seconds). Around the outside on the back it states that this is the 'Official Timepiece Old Royal Observatory Greenwich', and that it is water resistant.

The strap continues the meridian line from the watch face over a map where the line passes through, showing the equator, the tropic lines, and from 80° North to 50° South.