I’m not enough of an astrophysicist to do this math myself, but what would this kind of burst look like from Earth? Observable w a telescope? W the naked eye? Enter a bomb shelter and save yourself?
If it does generate a gamma ray burst, then that is a more interesting phenomena. Depending on whether or not it is pointed in our direction, we might see more or less energy from it directly. After travelling 8000 light years and passing through all the dust between us and the planet, it would be seriously attenuated and unlikely to cause any destruction or even noticeable effects on earth.
[1] Astrologers on the other hand, it could be the sign that the end of the world is nigh :-)
It suggests another interesting plot for a science fiction novel, an alien attack force is coming to invade the planet, and a GRB event goes of across the galaxy, missing Earth completely but killing everything on the alien armada. Which slowly drifts toward the inner solar system.
Is a gamma burst directional, or spherical in term of high-energy emission?
And, how directional? All the energy is spread across half the sky? Only 10 degrees? Or only one degree? Is 30 degrees enough for it to completely miss us? Mostly miss us? Or are we still in the danger cone?
Finally, in a binary star system, is that 30 degrees going to change as the stars orbit each other? (Worse, IIRC, there's a third, more distant star. Can it change the orbit of the other two in a way that shifts that 30 degrees?)
My impression is that a GRB beam is on the order of a few degrees, but I can’t find that reference now.
https://newatlas.com/gamma-ray-burst-star-supernova/57308/
(On looking into this, I began to think that Apep and WR104 might be the same thing, but they have different locations.)