To get a feel for the tremendous size of that star:
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Star-sizes.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Star-sizes.jpg</a>
"Betelgeuse is already one of the brightest stars in the night sky, sitting somewhere around the 8th or 9th brightest star in the night sky. (These lists don’t include the Sun, which is somewhat obviously always the brightest object in the sky.)"<p>A good point, although it is fairly rare to see the sun in the night sky these days.
The remnents of the supernova that occurred in 1054 is known as the "Crab Nebula", AKA M1 on Messier's catalog.<p>I remember observing this from my back garden some 10 years ago with a small telescope, but that's quite difficult now due to light polution. It's getting hard for people to see stars in many big cities, let alone fainter objects.
"Nighttime will be a different story. The brightness of Betelgeuse’s supernova is about the same as the quarter moon."<p>This will last maybe a couple of weeks, but we don't expect it for 100K years.
This article reminded me of something I read a few years ago. What is it like to be really near a supernova? It's a quick read and entertaining too.<p>Life (Briefly) Near a Supernova:<p><a href="http://www.nagt.org/files/nagt/jge/abstracts/Dutch_v53n1.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.nagt.org/files/nagt/jge/abstracts/Dutch_v53n1.pdf</a>
Other than slightly brighter-than-normal nights, will there be any adverse effects on Earth?<p>The wikipedia article on near-Earth supernovae [1] suggests that Betelgeuse will be pretty safe because of its distance. But exactly how safe? What about all the delicate electronics that we've sent up to space? I suppose anything that can withstand a daily dose of solar radiation would probably be okay, but are there any specific wavelengths that could cause an issue?<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_supernova" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_supernova</a>
Starts-With-A-Bang is a must-follow blog collection for anyone mildly interested in Physics. They're all frequent, up to date, and most importantly, accurate.
semi-related: Betty From Betelgeuse is the name of one of the main characters in my book series The Dread Space Pirate Richard.<p>I chose Betelgeuse partly as a nod to HHGG and partly for the way it read and sounded when pronounced aloud. I think of all the star names it is possibly the most beautiful and memorable.