However, it's not bright, and it's not always well placed to be seen. So to see the Milky Way you will have to meet the following requirements. Dark skies - no moonlight, no city lights, no headlights, no streetlights 2. A little bit of timing - late summer or winter evenings are good. Dark skies are unfortunately hard to come by for many people these days.
Bright moonlight does the trick too, making the sky too bright to see the Milky Way.
Sunlight of course is the worst - the scattered light makes the sky so bright you can't even see bright stars, let alone the faint Milky Way. If you can identify your town, you probably won't see the Milky Way. If you travel out of town to one of the black regions you'll do much better. For more dark sky information and some links to nighttime pictures of the earth try the International Dark-Sky Association . Once you have your dark skies.