Visibility and Nomenclature
Under exceptionally good viewing conditions with no light pollution, the Triangulum Galaxy can be seen with the naked eye. It is one of the most distant permanent objects that can be viewed without the aid of a telescope. Being a diffuse object, its visibility is strongly affected by small amounts of light pollution. It ranges from easily visible by direct vision in dark skies to a difficult averted vision object in rural or suburban skies. For this reason, Triangulum is one of the critical sky marks of the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale.
The galaxy is sometimes informally referred to as the "Pinwheel Galaxy" by some amateur astronomy references and in some public outreach websites. However, the SIMBAD Astronomical Database, a professional astronomy database that contains formal designations for astronomical objects, indicates that the name "Pinwheel Galaxy" is used to refer to Messier 101, and several other amateur astronomy resources and other public outreach websites also identify Messier 101 by that name.
Read more about this topic: Triangulum Galaxy
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