most distant naked-eye object

The farthest thing visible to the naked eye is the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). It lies at a distance of about 2.3 million light years and its central region is visible as a small misty patch, roughly equivalent in brightness to a 4th magnitude star. It is a very large spiral galaxy, and the largest member of the Local Group to which our own Galaxy belongs. The only other galaxies visible to the naked eye are the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud. They are brighter than the Andromeda Galaxy, but they are much nearer, at 170.000 and 210,000 light years respectively, and much smaller. Another spiral galaxy in the Local Group, M33 also known as the Triangulum Galaxy, is just below naked-eye brightness with an integrated visual magnitude around 6. It is just slightly further away than the Andromeda Galaxy, but only one quarter the size.