CC Bootis: QSO, Not Variable Halo Giant

The poorly-studied, faint (18<m_pg<19.5) variable star CC Bootis has been noted in the literature as a candidate for a halo red giant. It proves instead to be a quasi-stellar object of redshift z=0.172, and is detected as an X-ray source by ROSAT. In addition to its odd heritage, CC Boo exhibits unusually high amplitude optical variability for an optically-selected QSO.