The system is faintly visible to the naked eye as a point of light with an apparent visual magnitude that fluctuates around 5.105.

[3] It is located at a distance of approximately 780 light years from the Sun based on parallax,[2] and is drifting further away with a radial velocity of +14 km/s.

However, based on a constant period and the shape of the light curve, it was later reclassified as a semiregular variable of type SRa in 1978.

[4] The spectrum of 57 Peg displays blended features that indicate this is a binary system consisting of an aging red giant star on the asymptotic giant branch[5] with a stellar classification of M4IIIa, and a fainter but hotter A-type main-sequence companion of class A3V.

[8] The red giant primary has been designated as an S-type star that shows enriched levels of s-process elements in its spectrum.