> There is no absolute direction for a galaxy’s spin—it’s always relative to the observer’s perspective.
Not entirely. The galaxy is bound by gravity and the stars rotate in the galaxy around its baricenter. We can compute how fast it must be rotating from the amount of visible matter. Enter dark matter and various complications, but still, you can tell that it's rotating and which way.
And for galaxies we see edge on we can use the difference if redshift on one end versus the other to tell which way it is turning.
Not entirely. The galaxy is bound by gravity and the stars rotate in the galaxy around its baricenter. We can compute how fast it must be rotating from the amount of visible matter. Enter dark matter and various complications, but still, you can tell that it's rotating and which way.
And for galaxies we see edge on we can use the difference if redshift on one end versus the other to tell which way it is turning.