The story of Seyfert galaxy RE J2248-511: from intriguingly ultrasoft to
  unremarkably average
  RE J2248-511 is one of only 14 non-blazar AGN detected in the far ultraviolet
by the ROSAT Wide Field Camera implying a large ultrasoft X-ray flux. This soft
X-ray excess is strongly variable on year timescales, a common property of
Narrow Line Seyfert 1s, yet its optical linewidths classify this source as a
broad-lined Seyfert 1. We use four nearly simultaneous optical--X-ray SEDs
spanning 7 years to study the spectral shape and long term variability of RE
J2248-511.
  Here we show that the continuum SED for the brightest epoch dataset is
consistent with the mean SED of a standard quasar, and matches well to that
from an XMM-SDSS sample of AGN with <M/M_Sun> ~ 10^8 and <L/L_Edd> ~ 0.2. All
the correlated optical and soft X-ray variability can be due entirely to a
major absorption event. The only remarkable aspect of this AGN is that there is
no measurable intrinsic X-ray absorption column in the brightest epoch dataset.
The observed FUV flux is determined by the combination of this and the fact
that the source lies within a local absorption `hole'. RE J2248-511, whose
variable, ultrasoft X-ray flux once challenged its BLS1 classification,
demonstrates that characterisation of such objects requires multi-epoch,
multi-wavelength campaigns.
