Context : There is a continued debate as to the form of the outer disc of the Milky Way galaxy , which has important implications for its formation .
Stars are known to exist at a galacto-centric distance of at least 20 kpc .
However , there is much debate as to whether these stars can be explained as being part of the disc or whether another extra galactic structure , the so called Monoceros ring/stream , is required

Aims : To examine the outer disc of the Galaxy toward the anti-centre to determine whether the star counts can be explained by the thin and thick discs alone .

Methods : Using Sloan star counts and extracting the late F and early G dwarfs it is possible to directly determine the density of stars out to a galacto-centric distance of about 25 kpc .
These are then compared with a simple flared disc model .

Results : A flared disc model is shown to reproduce the counts along the line of sights examined , if the thick disc does not have a sharp cut off .
The flare starts at a Galacto-centric radius of 16 kpc and has a scale length of 4.5 \pm 1.5 kpc

Conclusions : Whilst the interpretation of the counts in terms of a ring/stream can not be definitely discounted , it does not appear to be necessary , at least along the lines of sight examined towards the anti centre .