An alternative approach to COMPTEL Al-26 1.8 MeV studies

We have previously applied various imaging and sky-model fitting analyses t o the COMPTEL 1.8 MeV data, but the basic technique of background modelling (instrumental + celestial) was virtually the same in all these studies. We present here preliminary results obtained with a very different background modelling method, using 5 years of observations. The resulting, maximum-en tropy map of the Milky Way is similar to the one we obtained previously. In this new analysis, however, we tend to extract a higher flux for the galac tic disk at large (e.g similar to 4X10(-4) gamma cm(-2) s-(1) rad(-1) for t he inner galactic radian, \b\ < 20 degrees). This is in better agreement wi th results from other experiments, but needs further study.