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I was talking to my son last week (he works on Mauna Kea), and he mentioned some new observations (that will no doubt get published eventually) of "Beetlejuice"; it's no longer round.  This is a huge star, and when it goes, it will be at least as bright as that 1054 supernova...except that this one is 520 light years away, not 6,300:

SN 1054 (Crab Supernova) was a supernova that was widely seen on Earth in the year 1054. It was recorded by Chinese, Japanese, Native Americans, and Persian/Arab astronomers as being bright enough to see in daylight for 23 days and was visible in the night sky for 653 days.[1][2][3] The progenitor star was located in the Milky Way galaxy at a distance of 6,300 light years and exploded as a core-collapse supernova.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054

When it collapses, it will be at least as bright as the full moon, and maybe as bright as the sun.  For six weeks.  So the really lucky folks (for whom Betelgeuse is only visible at night) will get 24 hour days, everybody else will get at least some time with two suns in the sky.  The extra hour of light from daylight savings time won't burn the crops, but this might.  Probably, all we'll get is visible light (not gamma rays or X-rays), so it shouldn't be an ELE.  It's sure gonna freak everyone out, though.....

Then it will form a black hole, but we're too far away for that to matter.

The buzz is that this is weeks/months away, not the "any time in the next thousand years" that's in all the books.

For your reading pleasure (and I left out the tinfoil, but a google search will turn up plenty):

Betelgeuse is a semiregular variable star located approximately 640 light-years from the Earth[5] With an apparent magnitude ranging between 0.3 and 1.2, it is the ninth brightest star in the night sky. Although Betelgeuse has the Bayer designation Alpha Orionis (α Orionis / α Ori), it is most often the second brightest star in the constellation Orion behind α; Rigel (Beta Orionis) is usually brighter (Betelgeuse is a variable star and is on occasion brighter than Rigel). The star marks the upper right vertex of the Winter Triangle and center of the Winter Hexagon.

Betelgeuse is a red supergiant, and one of the largest and most luminous stars known. For comparison, if the star were at the center of our solar system its surface might extend out to between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, wholly engulfing Mercury, Venus, the Earth and Mars. The angular diameter of Betelgeuse was first measured in 1920–1921 by Albert Abraham Michelson and Francis G. Pease using the 100 inch (2.5 m) John D. Hooker astronomical interferometer telescope atop Mount Wilson Observatory.

Astronomers believe Betelgeuse is only a few million years old, but has evolved rapidly because of its high mass.[7] Due to its age, Betelgeuse may supernova within the next millennium (because it is hundreds of light years away, it possibly may have done so already).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse

http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/betelgeuse.htm

http://domeofthesky.com/clicks/betelgeuse.html

http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/betelgeuse-will-explode-someday

http://scienceray.com/astronomy/apocalypse-soon-supernova-betelgeuse-is-coming/

Quote (AiNedeSpelCzech @ 31 May 2010 21:21)

So outside of the amazing factor, is there anything big we'll have a chance to learn from this?