Exactly. The second part is astounding.

I really liked Tobias Smollett's translation. It has just the right archaic feel to it, not surprising because he lived in the 18th century.

If observers in the alpha Centauri system looked at our Sun, they would see a star of apparent magnitude 0.5, which is very bright. The Sun would be in the constellation Cassiopeia, and could be considered as an extension of it. (Cassiopeia itself wouldn't appear much different.) Here's a Sky & Telescope article about this.