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We demonstrate a new statistical method of determining the global photometricproperties of the Milky Way (MW) to an unprecedented degree of accuracy,allowing our Galaxy to be compared directly to objects measured inextragalactic surveys. Capitalizing on the high-quality imaging andspectroscopy dataset from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we exploit theinherent dependence of galaxies' luminosities and colors on their total stellarmass, $\mathrm{M}_\star$, and star formation rate (SFR),$\mathrm{\dot{M}}_\star$, by selecting a sample of $Milky$ $Way$ $analog$$galaxies$ designed to reproduce the best Galactic $\mathrm{M}_\star$ and$\mathrm{\dot{M}}_\star$ measurements, including all measurement uncertainties.Making the Copernican assumption that the MW is not extraordinary amongstgalaxies of similar stellar mass and SFR, we then analyze the photometricproperties of this matched sample, constraining the characteristics of ourGalaxy without suffering interference from interstellar dust. We explore avariety of potential systematic errors that could affect this method, and findthat they are subdominant to random uncertainties. We present both SDSS $ugriz$absolute magnitudes and colors in both rest-frame $z$=0 and $z$=0.1 passbandsfor the MW, which are in agreement with previous estimates but can have up to$\sim$3$\times$ lower errors. We find the MW to have absolute magnitude$^0\!M_r-5\log h=-21.00_{-0.37}^{+0.38}$ and integrated color$^0(g-r)=0.682_{-0.056}^{+0.066}$, indicating that it may belong to thegreen-valley region in color-magnitude space and ranking it amongst thebrightest and reddest of spiral galaxies. We also present new estimates ofglobal stellar mass-to-light ratios for our Galaxy. This work will help relateour in-depth understanding of the Galaxy to studies of more distant objects.

Unveiling the Milky Way: A New Technique for Determining the Optical Color and Luminosity of our Galaxy