  A flexible maximum-entropy component separation algorithm is presented that
accommodates anisotropic noise, incomplete sky-coverage and uncertainties in
the spectral parameters of foregrounds. The capabilities of the method are
determined by first applying it to simulated spherical microwave data sets
emulating the COBE-DMR, COBE-DIRBE and Haslam surveys. Using these simulations
we find that is very difficult to determine unambiguously the spectral
parameters of the galactic components for this data set due to their high level
of noise. Nevertheless, we show that is possible to find a robust CMB
reconstruction, especially at the high galactic latitude. The method is then
applied to these real data sets to obtain reconstructions of the CMB component
and galactic foreground emission over the whole sky. The best reconstructions
are found for values of the spectral parameters: T_d=19 K, alpha_d=2,
beta_ff=-0.19 and beta_syn=-0.8. The CMB map has been recovered with an
estimated statistical error of \sim 22 muK on an angular scale of 7 degrees
outside the galactic cut whereas the low galactic latitude region presents
contamination from the foreground emissions.
