How bright would the center of the Milky Way be without interstellar dust?

Infrared astronomers estimate that there are about 25 magnitudes of optical extinction between the Sun and the stars in the nucleus of the Milky Way, caused by interstellar dust grains and interstellar clouds. Most of the stars in the center are giant stars with absolute magnitudes near +0.0 at a distance of 8 kiloparsecs. This means that with no extinction, their brightness would be about m = 0.0 - 5.0 + 5log(8000) = +14.5. A million of these stars would give an integrated visual brightness of about -0.5m, and if you spread them out over a region the diameter of the full moon, the surface brightness would be equal to about that of the Orion Nebula. So, even with no dust, you would only see a slight enhancement in the brightness of the Milky Way's core regions by perhaps a few magnitudes or so...my best estimate.