 Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) observations have identified a complex central region that is dominated by two bright components, A and B.The separation between the two central components of the source seems to be increasing with an apparent velocity (superluminal motion) of 1.2 ± 0.4 c.

3C 147 is one of four primary calibrators used by the Very Large Array (along with 3C 48, 3C 138, and 3C 286).Visibilities of all other sources are calibrated using observed visibilities of one of these four calibrators.