The center of the Milky Way Galaxy is toward the contellation Sagittarius. The light gathered from that direction is applied as the bright center portion of the galaxy as it might appear from the side, with a 360 degree view applied as the arms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way __________

http://seds.org/Messier/more/mw.html __________ These images of the sky and their resolutions are amazing! Now we have a home planetarium. You can zoom in to a stellar cluster in the sky and you see more and more stars appear; then as you back away you can understand the power of the hubble telescope. We are on one spiral arm on the outer zone of the galaxy, like riding on a huge disk. When we look toward Sagittarius then not only are we looking toward the denser center of the Milky Way but we are also looking through the depth of the galaxy itself. Opposite the sky from Sagittarius is the constellation Orion and the deep space beyond our galaxy.