An Eclectic View of our Milky Way Galaxy
  The nature of our Milky Way Galaxy is reexamined from an eclectic point of
view. Evidence for a central bar, for example, is not reflected in the
distribution of RR Lyrae variables in the central bulge [4,5], and it is not
clear if either a 2-armed or 4-armed spiral pattern is appropriate for the
spiral arms. Radial velocity mapping of the Galaxy using radio H I, H II, or CO
observations is compromised by the assumptions adopted for simple Galactic
rotation. The Sun's local standard of rest (LSR) velocity is $\sim 14$ km
s$^{-1}$ rather than 20 km s$^{-1}$, the local circular velocity is $251 \pm 9$
km s$^{-1}$ rather than 220 km s$^{-1}$, and young groups of stars exhibit a
10--20 km s$^{-1}$ "kick" relative to what is expected from Galactic rotation.
By implication, the same may be true for star-forming gas clouds affected by
the Galaxy's spiral density wave, raising concerns about their use for mapping
spiral arms. Proper motion data in conjunction with the newly-estimated
velocity components for the Sun's motion imply a distance to the Galactic
centre of $R_0=8.34\pm0.27$ kpc, consistent with recent estimates which average
$8.24\pm0.09$ kpc. A cosinusoidal Galactic potential is not ruled out by
observations of open star clusters. The planetary nebula cluster Bica 6, for
example, has a near-escape orbit for a Newtonian potential, but a near-normal
orbit in a cosinusoidal potential field. The nearby cluster Collinder 464 also
displays unusually large tidal effects consistent with those expected for a
cosinusoidal potential. A standard Newtonian version of the Virial Theorem for
star clusters yields very reasonable masses ($\sim 3 \times 10^{11}M_{\odot}$
and $\sim 4 \times 10^{11}M_{\odot}$) for the Milky Way and M31 subgroups of
the Local Group, respectively. A cosinusoidal relation should yield identical
results.
