system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How is it possible to take a picture of the Milky Way galaxy if we are a part of it?

We've all seen photos of the Milky Way. How do we know its shape? How are pictures of it even possible if we can't position any kind of imaging device outside of the galaxy?

EDIT: Many thanks all for the responses! It is absolutely heartbreaking that we will likely NEVER experience the incredible beauty that I'm sure our galaxy looks like to the naked eye of an observer from above.
gpt
It's not and we haven't. Pictures labelled as the milky way are all either artists impressions, or pictures of other galaxies.

We can certainly *map* the milky way, as we would anything else by triangulation. That allows us to build models of how it is structured, and hence we can render pretty accurate graphics representing it. However, that is all they are.