The Observatory displays the time based on the position of the sun or moon around the earth. The time is read off the scale on the upper half of the face. The position of the sun indicates the hours from 6am until 6pm, while the moon represents the hours from 6pm through to 6am. The golden comet indicates the minutes as it orbits the earth.
The time display on The Observatory is based on the sun and moon type pocket watches that were first produced in England in the late 1600s. At this time there was a period of experimentation into how to represent the time, before the concentric hour and minute hands were established as the universal standard.