This was the longest view experience of this kind I have ever experienced. The object was actually moving slower than a plane. So slow that I thought for a moment that it might be a helicopter. In fact there was a plane in the sky 40 seconds behind the object (lights flashing) so I had an immediate follow-up gauge to correlate the speed. Really quite beautiful and the cloud that dissipated after the object disappeared was rather large and multicolored (brown to blue). The effect of the moon shining through them cloud was stunning!
Location
Address
Los Gatos, CA
Latitude
37° 6' 8.5'' N (37.102362°)
Longitude
121° 56' 23.02'' W (-121.939727°)
Elevation
446.275208m
Time and Duration
Local Date & Time
2014-09-12 06:00 PDT
UT Date & Time
2014-09-12 13:00 UT
Duration
≈45s
Direction
Moving direction
From left to right
Descent Angle
90°
Moving
Facing azimuth
169.47°
First azimuth
166.09°
First elevation
-
Last azimuth
225.91°
Last elevation
-
Brightness and color
Stellar Magnitude
-
Color
moved from red to white while emitting a bright florescent glow then vaporized slowly
Concurrent Sound
Observation
No
Remarks
-
Delayed Sound
Observation
No
Remarks
-
Persistent train
Observation
Yes
Duration
45s
Length
10°
Remarks
First saw object as glowing bright red spot in sky. First I thought it to be a planet but as I watched it became larger. Then thought it to be a plane but it continued to grow in size and brightness. The red color started to shift to white and a corona began to appear around the object...much like a contrail from a plane except it was not trailing the object but engulfing it. As the object shifted from red to white in color the corona effect intensified
and grew in size. 45 seconds into the sighting experience the object shrunk down to completely disappear leaving a very large cloud of blue and brown cloud vapors in the sky. The moon was present in the sky at approximately the same viewing angle and very bright but the object spotted was much more intense in luminosity and very easy to spot. The whole experience lasted about 45 seconds. So long that I was able to walk slightly up hill to maintain my viewing angle until it disappeared.
