When editing a precomp is there a way to see it in context with the main composition?

Awesome thanks that helped a lot!!

As Mylenium suggested, there's a small lock icon on the tab of your Composition viewer. If you click that, it will lock this viewer, no matter what comp your timeline panel is in. If desired, you can open a second Comp viewer, and see both the precomp and parent comp side-by-side. 

Lock the composition viewers and rearrange them side by side. ETLAT - edit this, look at that.

Mylenium