Yes, when you actually do get a really clear view of the night sky, on a dark, moonless night, it really will blow your mind.<br><br>BTW the view is also quite different in the Southern Hemisphere—much brighter, a lot more smeared-out objects. Quite a different experience.<br><br>The ancients knew nothing of the science that we do now. Still, someone must have occasionally thought: Hey, wait a second, the Sun is a big, bright ball in the Sky, and all these little points of light are very tiny objects, but still bright; so isn't it likely they are also suns like ours? And if so, they must be VERY far away. (A few people, at least by the time of ancient Greece, were able to figure out the distance to the Sun, just by geometric principles.)