If you have good eyesight (or good glasses/contacts prescription), you can see it without binoculars (at least the brighter core of the galaxy). Just don't look

If you have good eyesight (or good glasses/contacts prescription), you can see it without binoculars (at least the brighter core of the galaxy). Just don't look directly at it or it disappears, because you don't have rod cells in the middle of your field of view.