The ASAS-SN team reported that no object at the nova's location brighter than magnitude 17.5 was seen on images taken four days earlier.

[1] It reached a peak brightness of magnitude 5.6, faintly visible to the naked eye, on 25 September 2016.

[6] [7] V407 Lupi declined from its peak brightness very quickly, fading by 2 magnitudes in less than three days.

It is therefore classified as a "very fast" nova in the classification scheme of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.

Observations by the satellite TESS detected a variation in the light curve of V407 Lupi indicating an orbital period for the binary system of 3.513 days;[9] it was previously thought to be 3.573 hours,[10] but this has since been disproven.