surprise transit

Last Tuesday night I had a nice night in the back yard with the 12.5-inch.  I was expecting to see two Galilean moons come out of eclipse from Jupiter's shadow, one a half hour from the other.  Instead I saw a bright disk just beginning a transit.  I must've hit a wrong key on the S&T Jupiter app and have pulled up the wrong day's events.  It was Europa, which begin its transit at 9:00pm just as I started observing.  It was contrasted with the North Equatorial Belt.  Seeing was quite good and there was a slight haze in the sky; using 340x I saw some light purple festoons sweeping into the Equatorial region from the NEB.  The North Polar region was a light brown and pretty solid all the way to the NEB.  The South Polar region was a darker brown and had a gap between it and the SEB.  There was a long wispy streak running nearly the width of the planet in the SEB, close to the gap just mentioned.  Two large dark barges in the NEB. 

The moons displayed colors: Io was yellowish, Calisto was smallest and a deep orange, Ganymede was the largest and a nice orange color; it showed the most albedo variation, with the southern half showing a darker orange than the northern. 

I moved on to some double star splitting in the area, and came back to Jupiter an hour later.  By this time I could still see Europa in transit because it was still contrasted with the NEB.  It was not a little more than halfway across and was at the root of the largest festoon.  I waited longer to see if I could witness the shadow egress...but as of 10:37 it still hadn't started, and I needed to go inside.  I found out later I would have needed to wait until 11:34pm.

Here's a summary of the double star splitting, same magnification:

STF1536: Quite close; very bright yellow white A and brownish B, split in A's diffraction ring.  Last separation was 2.1". 

STF1540: Yellow A and reddish B; wide separation.  A 3rd star about 3x distant related?  [not].  28.2" sep.

STFA19: Bright yellow A, bluish B, very widely separated (89.4")

75 Leonis: Red in finder, orange in scope (this was a carbon star diversion)

65 Leonis: Thought this might be a quadruple but seems it is not.  Brighter yellow A and a blue B, widely separated.  -- Seems I did not split this!  Checking current separation, it would be a very close pair at 2.7". 

55 Leonis: Not split or a very wide pair.  -- Not split; current separation 1.1"

S 617: Yellow A, blue B, wide separation (35.2")

STF1476 (in Sextans): Tight white of equal brightness; low in the sky seeing a bit poor.  (2.3", 7.08 and 7.82 mags)

STF1527: Not split (2012 separation is 0.3".  Interesting, since 1822 measure was 3.7" -- must have highly elliptical orbit.  Should be one to watch over the years, increase in separation.

STF1547: Bright yellow A, 3x fainter red B.  Wide separation. 

88 Leonis: A favorite!  Yellow and blue pair.  A has to spectroscopic pairs

h4433 / 81 Leonis:  Bright yellowish A, very faint bluish B, wide separation (55.1"; 5.6m / 10.8m)

β1282: very bright A, several stars around it; which is the pair?

STF1517: Very tight, hair split small orange stars of equal magnitude.  Wow!  (Stelle Doppie says current separation is 0.7", A mag 7.54, B 8.02; so I must've hit it on a good night.)