In an earlier post a while ago, I discussed about possibility to have a very bright comet this November/December. The updates are mostly disappointing as comet ISON does not perform the best expected. Alan Mac Robert from Sky and Telescope reviews the status of this comet recently and provided realistic estimated for expected brightening:
It can still be cached by small telescopes. However, the chance of having a bright (naked-eye) comet like Hale-Bopp is not significant.
Micropore 