Dear members of sci.astro,

I have a question that have been mulling in my head for some time.

From our point of view inside the milky way, the sky is mostly
dark(ish) (at least in the visible range) punctuated by a few
thousdands stars (unaided vision).

On the other hand, a galaxy like M31, seen from outside,
i.e. from our planet, glows and looks like a single object
even though we know is very similar to our galaxy, made by
many billions and billions of stars.

So, my question is: if we were inside the Orion Nebula,
would the previous analogy hold? Would we see a mostly dark
sky with a few "streaks" of matter where the gas/dust
concentration is higher? Or would we see the whole sky
glowing like a permanent and possibly blinding daylight?

Thanks for your help.

Manu