ATLASGAL 870µm dust continuum cutouts centred on the position of a given maser, shown as a magenta ‘X.’. The white ‘+’ is the position of an ATLASGAL compact source from the compact source catalogue (CSC). The white contours are the ATLASGAL 1, 2, 3, and 4σ levels, where the red contour is the 5σ level. The left panel shows an example where it is clear that the methanol maser is associated with dust emission above 5σ, but farther than the 12″ used for the association. The right panel shows an example of a weak compact source that shows a maser association, but was not considered for the ATLASGAL CSC. However, the association with the maser makes a strong argument for the veracity of the weak compact source.