What is so fascinating about Van Gogh's "Starry Night?" I can't seem to pin it down...

Well, I find it fascinating because it looks sort of like a time exposure of the stars/galaxies in their orbits, but the village is painted like a snapshot moment. And I've always found peace and wonder in the night and the nighttime sky.

the organic qualityof the sky with the movement of the brush strokes. Simple yet effective

It is as if you are inside his troubled head gazing out at the night sky outside.
Even though his life was so turbulent, he could see the beuty around him.

the "value" of a work depends on the sensibility of the viewer: what is profound to one person might not be to another. likewise, starry night might evoke fascination in one person and not another; that this painting is "fascinating" is just the opinion of the supposed majority..

I've always liked it because it seems bright and dark at the same time. Although nothing is happening, the swirls give it a lively feel.

The stroke technique makes it look very surreal but enchanting. The color depth adds a calm aura with undertones of unsettledness. The shapes are sharp and blurred in just the right places, like an embossed overcrop.

Van Gogh painted Starry Night in June 1889 while staying at a psychiatric hospital, after being once again deeply depressed. During that time he started developing a strong desire to communicate with nature & especially an obsession with understanding the night, thus his great passion for painting the night sky. The only problem was that there wasn't enough light around, so in order to clearly see the dark sky he hung candles from his hat & from the canvas. Starry Night is believed to reflect Van Gogh's anguish (& his fight with it) & his desperate need to maintain his passion for life. Experts consider the internal elements of the painting to be in perfect aesthetic balance, which refers to a) colored points that are the smallest elements in the painting, b) the distribution of trees, houses, mountains & the sky & c) the balance between the upper half of the painting (sky, stars & galaxies formed by winding, (dominating) curved lines from energetic brush strokes that reveal emotional intensity) & it's lower half which is created with stricter rules of composition & structure (houses, trees etc). The stars' luminous white & yellow against the dark (black & blue) sky is said to form a obvious contrast symbolizing the artist's need to maintain hope in the darkness of his life.

The absurd simplicity of the peice is the most confounding of aspect of an artists work.

it's old, and there's only one original in the entire world.......

I agree, there is nothing there except the name of the artist.
its "us" whom make artists famous, generally after they are dead,(every one has problems but if you can paint a little then die), whatever you painted is worth something ( as long as people knew about your troubles).. ;)