In 1909, galileo first looked at the milky way using very powerful binoculars

Galileo first studied the Milky Way through his telescope in January, 1610 not 1909. Until his observations, the Milky Way was thought to be a band of wispy whitish clouds passing through the heavens. To Galileo's amazement, instead of seeing just a nebula (the Greek work for cloud) the milky wisps resolved into innumerable tiny stars, so crowded together that, without the aid of a telescope, the light from those stars simply blended together.