Could 'old' novae be cometary outbursts?

Are naked-eye novae more common than naked-eye cometary?

Michael, as an avid nova hunter I can easily sat that there still would be a better chance of seeing a naked eye comet instead of a naked eye nova. Naked eye novae don't come around too often, and either do naked eye comets, but I find looking back over the years, the comets win out...

Keith..

Perhaps I should re-phase my question to reflect what I was thinking:
"Are naked-eye novae more common than naked-eye comets which suddenly flare-up and reach naked eye visbility at a distance whereby they don't appear to move?"

Most comets as I understand don't flare up suddenly. If a bright light was seen in the sky which turned out to be a comet, chances are it would be a "normal" naked-eye comet, and so it woud be recognised as a comet, and not confused with a nova. The likelyhood of a comet reaching naked-eye visbility in a manner similar to the one we are experiencing and for it to happen at quite a distane from Earth must be very very small.

The likelihood of any comet appearing not to move is, well, I'd say zero. I mean, it is a moving object to become a comet (from a frozen asteroid-like state anyway). Even, if like the way Holmes appears to be, a comet flared in brightness, but appeared stationary, it should appear to get either larger or smaller if it was travelling in line-of-sight towards or away from us. For 2 nights, Holmes appeared to have barely moved, but we know from history that it is a periodic comet. Even if it stayed in this position for a while (days), we should notice a very small shift in either size or trajectory.

Seanie.