It was discovered on 9 October 1980, by American astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker at the Palomar Observatory in California.
[3] In September 2009, a rotational lightcurve of Schaber was obtained from photometric observations by Maurice Clark at the Montgomery College Observatory in Maryland.
Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 10.971 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.46 magnitude, indicative for a somewhat elongated shape (U=3-).
[3] This minor planet was named after American Gerald Gene Schaber, geologist with the United States Geological Survey, who headed the USGS's astrogeology branch in the 1980s.
The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 26 March 1986 (M.P.C.