Finding Messier objects in the night sky can be quite tough especially if your skies aren’t particularly dark or you don’t have a well aligned Goto telescope mount.
For each of the 110 Messier objects, we used Stellarium software to plot charts of how to find them and save them in negative format.
The upper chart shows the object with respect to background constellations. The view (FoV field of view) through your telescope and finder is indicated by the concentric rings around the object. The outer ring indicates 4° (similar to a finder’s FoV), the middle indicates 2° and the inner indicates 0.5° (similar to a low magnification telescope’s FoV). The lower chart shows the star detail based on the 4° FoV.
Each set of charts contains basic information on object size in arc minutes and a small inset image of the object. The list is available at https://bathastronomers.org.uk/messier-objects-list/
There is an extra column in list called View Order. This is the suggested order to attempt to view the objects if you are undertaking a Messier Marathon in March each year. The first in the list is M77.