[2] The body's observation arc begins with a precovery published by the Digitized Sky Survey and taken at the Palomar Observatory in April 1954, more than 45 years prior to its official discovery observation at Campo Catino.
[9]: 23 In September 2010, a rotational lightcurve of Masi was obtained from photometric observations in the R-band by astronomers at the Palomar Transient Factory in California.
Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 13.862 hours with a relatively high brightness amplitude of 0.68 magnitude (U=2).
[7] According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Masi measures 3.150 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.235,[5][6] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for a stony asteroid of 0.20, and calculates a diameter of 2.45 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 15.42.
[4] This minor planet was named after Italian astrophysicist and astronomer, Gianluca Masi (born 1972), a researcher and discoverer of minor planets and variable stars, who became an avid amateur astronomer when he was 8 years old.