[2][13] Katja was discovered on 15 August 1928, by Soviet astronomer Pelageya Shajn at the Simeiz Observatory on the Crimean peninsula.
[3] Between 2002 and 2011, several rotational lightcurves of Katja were obtained from photometric observations by French amateur astronomers Maurice Audejean, René Roy and Laurent Brunetto (U=2/2/2-).
Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined synodic rotation period of 18.465 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.17 magnitude (U=3).
[5][6][7][8][11] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link derives an albedo of 0.2253 and a diameter of 38.65 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 9.3.
[3] This minor planet was named for Ekaterina ("Katja") Iosko, a laboratory assistant and orbit calculator at the discovering Simeiz Observatory (AN 238, 149).