I was a kid living in Botswana when Halley passed earth.

We watched it every night through binoculars.

Marvelous clean air - humidity around 0%, just some dust. No light pollution (there wasn't an electricity grid in some 100km around, just a handful of small diesel aggregates).

The binoculars were more than enough to see the comet, its tail. And even get a feeling of the tail arcing in three dimensions.