The asteroid was discovered on 27 October 1987, by Japanese astronomer Tsutomu Seki at Geisei Observatory, Japan.

[1] The first precovery was taken at Palomar Observatory in 1953, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 34 years prior to its discovery.

[9] In January 2009, a rotational lightcurve of Saheki was obtained from photometric observations by David Higgins at Hunters Hill Observatory, Australia.

[7] In 2013, an international study modeled a lightcurve with a concurring period of 4.97347 hours and found a spin axis of (44.0°, 59.0°) and (222.0°, 68.0°) in ecliptic coordinates (λ, β), respectively (Q=2).

[6] According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Saheki has a high albedo of 0.33 and a diameter of 6.7 kilometers,[4][5] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link calculates a diameter of 7.1 kilometers, based on an assumed albedo of 0.24, derived from 8 Flora, the Flora family's namesake and largest member.