It is yellow in hue and visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of +3.77.

[5] This object is position 0.86 degrees north of the ecliptic, so ο Sagittarii can be occulted by the Moon and very rarely by planets.

[citation needed] It was almost eclipsed by the sun, which occupies a mean, rounded, half of one degree of the sky, on 5 January.

[4] It is classified as a red clump giant, suggesting it is on the horizontal branch undergoing core helium fusion.

It has expanded to 12 times the girth of the Sun and is radiating 67 times the Sun's luminosity from its swollen photosphere at an effective temperature of 4,744 K.[7] It has a faint, magnitude 13.8 companion, designated component B and positioned 38.4″ away along a position angle of 252°, as of 2010.