It was discovered during the Palomar–Leiden survey on 24 September 1960, by Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden, and Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory in California, United States.
[1][5] Sijthoff is a non-family asteroid of the main belt's background population when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements.
[5] In October 2011, a rotational lightcurve of Sijthoff was obtained from photometric observations in the S-band by astronomers at the Palomar Transient Factory in California.
Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 4.607 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.29 magnitude (U=2).
[5] This minor planet was named after Albert Georg Sijthoff, publisher of the independent newspaper Haagsche Courant, who promoted the popularization of astronomy in the Netherlands.