A dial that knows whether it is day or night.

The point of this watch sits at the top of the dial. A round aperture at twelve shows a gold sun on a blue field through the day, then turns to a silver moon on a dark field at night. A small seconds register sits just beneath it, marked SMALL SEC.

This is a true rotating day-and-night indicator, not a printed dot. Very few mechanical watches at this price carry one, which is why the Sun & Moon gets recommended far beyond Orient’s usual audience.

Orient builds its own movements, and the F6B24 is one of the in-house automatics from the F6 family. It runs at 21,600 vibrations per hour on 22 jewels, with a stated reserve of around 40 hours.

It hacks and it hand-winds. The exhibition caseback lets you see the rotor. Orient’s figures are what we report; nothing here has been measured on a bench.

Orient’s own site no longer lists RA-AK0301S. The current Day & Night collection carries newer references, so the specifications here come from retailer listings rather than from Orient directly.

Those listings disagree with each other on the crystal material and on the exact case diameter, so we do not print either figure. Treat it as a roughly 42mm dress watch with 50m of water resistance, and check the listing you buy from.