It is located in the constellation Virgo, and varies between magnitudes 9.46 and 10.75 over a period of approximately 17 days.

[12] The pulsations cause changes in both temperature and size, leading to large changes in the luminosity and brightness.

Because relatively more infrared radiation is produced when the star is cooler, the maximum brightness in the infrared occurs when the visual brightness is already decreasing, and the maximum bolometric luminosity occurs at around phase 0.25 around halfway from maximum to minimum visual brightness.

They have supergiant spectral luminosity classes despite their modest masses and actual luminosities, because they are highly inflated evolved stars with very low surface gravities.

W Virginis itself is typical, with a mass less than half the sun, pulsating between 20 and 50 times the sun's radius, and a luminosity that varies from less than 500 L☉ to over a thousand L☉.