In the coming days and weeks, the trained–or perhaps lucky–observer will be able to step outside in the evening or morning twilight hours and get a rare glimpse of one of three so-called naked-eye comets. These are comets that can be seen without a telescope or binoculars.

While comet buffs are excited at this opportunity, Fred Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California, cautions that the naked-eye comets–named Bradfield, NEAT, and LINEAR–will appear faint and will be difficult for the inexperienced observer to see.