Erick, have ya checked out the APOD from today?
whoa! excellent
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070201.html
not many scientists are interested in comets, its all old hat? (EDIT: by that i mean following and monitoring known comets progress, except in some cases) some are interested in studying the sun/solar wind via comets tails, some are interested in discovering them, specially earth orbit crossing ones, some are interested in the building blocks of life/earth, and comet's role in that, but , mostly they just belong to the advanced amateurs/semi-professionals/hunters and then there is the 'bright' comet 'freaks' like me
EDIT: oh, and the millions of the public that enjoyed this show!