Decent. Great Comets are about a once-a-generation event, give or take. A list of brighter comets of the last ~century listed by peak magnitude (lower is bright

Decent. Great Comets are about a once-a-generation event, give or take. A list of brighter comets of the last ~century listed by peak magnitude (lower is brighter, the limit of a typical dark sky is about +6, Hale-Bopp peaked at -1.8, the brightest star in the sky is -1.68) * The Daylight Comet of 1910, reached a magnitude of -5 * Comet Ikeya-Seki, 1965, reached a magnitude of -10 (close to the full moon!) during the day as it grazed the Sun * Comet West, 1976, reached a magnitude of -3 * Comet McNaught, 2008, reached -5 * Comet Lovejoy, 2011, reached -4 (but was too close to the Sun in the sky to be easily observed by humans) So that's five comets of greater brightness than Hale-Bopp in ~100 years, or about one every 20 years. Hale-Bopp actually wasn't notable for its brightness, but for its size.