However, recent calculations from NASA's WISE telescope confirm that α Cas is the brightest in Cassiopeia, with an apparent magnitude of 2.240.

[12] Johannes Hevelius used the name Schedir in his writings, although there were additional traditional spellings of this Arabic transliteration such as Shedar, Shadar, Sheder, Seder, Shedis, and Shedir.

[14] Consequently, the Chinese name for Alpha Cassiopeiae itself is 王良四 (Wáng Liáng sì, English: the Fourth Star of Wang Liang).

Since α Cassiopeiae is listed as a second-magnitude star (equal to Beta Cas), it is easily observable to the naked eye as long as one's stargazing is not hindered by the light pollution common to most cities.

With the advances in optical interferometry in the 1990s, α Cassiopeiae's angular diameter was measured in 1998 at various wavelengths ranging from 500 to 850 nm.

[20][21][22] α Cassiopeiae is thought to be around 100 to 200 million years old, having spent much of its time as a blue-white B-type main-sequence star.

[19] In 1551, Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish cartographer, produced a celestial globe portraying the 48 traditional Ptolemaic constellations in addition to two others, Coma Berenices and Antinous.