Second Stage Lensmen by E.E. Smith

Here, upon the background of a blackness so intense as to be obviously barren of nebular material, there lay a multitude of blazingly resplendent stars -- and nothing except stars. A few hundred were of a visual magnitude of about minus three. Approximately the same number were of minus two or thereabouts, and so on down; but there did not seem to be a star or other celestial object in that starkly incredible sky of an apparent magnitude greater than about plus four.

"What do you make of this, Sir Austin? " Kinnison asked, quietly. "It's got me stopped like a traffic light."