Thanks Barry for bringing that to my attention, I found this article, by Dave Blane, on an ASSA website :
http://assa.saao.ac.za/sections/doub...e-beta-muscae/
He agrees with the 194 year period, Robert Burnham jr states that the period is still uncertain (+- 1978) and its separation in 1880 were 0.6" and 1.6 in 1955, Stellarium gives it as 1" in 2019 so it looks like its getting smaller?!
PS I did give it a try last night but conditions were not good, it had a lot of "moving hairs" around it but I am sure I saw two distinct dots in the center of the noise...This was with favourite double splitter: a TV big Barlow with a 10mm super MA eyepiece in a 8" SCT giving the most I can hope to get from my SCT : X400 with a 0.5mm exit pupil.