AbstractWe try to evaluate the level of confidence that can be placed in the optical methods available for sizing cometary dust (and, at the same time, deriving all its other characteristics). We use for this purpose the new informations provided by the in‐situ sampling of Comet Halley dust. We try to determine whether data from this origin are compatible with visible and I. R. spectra of this comet acquired from the Earth, and with earlier interpretations of such spectra. We find that, as happens frequently when remote sensing and local sampling techniques data can be compared, none of these techniques can claim to be fully satisfactory. In the case of cometary dust, current estimates based on optical sizing only may be much less accurate than precedingly assumed. Improvements in the observational approaches appear needed, as well as new laboratory investigations and theoretical developments to improve the capabilities of the optical studies of cometary dus