How close is nearby? It's thought that SN 1054 (Crab Nebula) is the same object as a "guest star" observed by Chinese astronomers in 1054-1056, and that's about 6500 lys away, so relatively close by.

It started as being invisible to the human eye, then went through a process of becoming much brighter before dimming again over a ~2 year period. So much brighter that it was visible in daylight for about 23 days, according to one account.