How much of our Milky way Galaxy can be seen from Earth?

Question

Was looking up at the night sky tonight, was wondering the answer to this question. Did a search for the answer on google and found nothing Can anyone help? :)

Answer 1

naked-eye, a few hundred light years out from earth. the most distant reasonably bright stars in the night sky are about 1600 light years away (e.g. deneb)

with radio and infrared telesscopes we can see all the way to teh centre. it's really cool.

Answer 2

Nice to see that someone tried to search before posting!

However the secret appears to be in using the right search terms as I found the answer below: 8479 our of 3 billion!!! (although for any individual observer 2500.)  This refers to unaided visibility, no doubt a lot more can be seen depending on the clarity of sky and the degree of magnification.

See the excellently written and interesting article linked below.

(I was interested to see that in New York it can be down to around two dozen stars, makes us appreciate how fortunate we are here in New Zealand when on a good night we can see hundreds!)

Answer 3

From Earth, you can only see one of the outer arms of the Milky Way.  You can probably find pictures and info on that on NASA's site.