That's what's been called the "Star-Hopping" method, Tyler. Some people find it very useful, with and without detailed charts. On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Tyler Allred <tyler@allred-astro.com>wrote:
As we advanced and started looking for more difficult objects, we began to use an ingenious method that my father devised (I'm sure it was not an original idea). For each star atlas that we owned, he made different sized circles printed on clear plastic sheets, each one carefully sized to represent the field of view of a specific eyepiece. We would begin by finding a nearby star that was bright enough to easily locate in the finder. Then we would "walk" our way to the object, one field of view at a time. One of us would sit at the map with the printed circle for the eyepiece we were using and give directions, while the other would look through the eyepiece and move the scope. It was quite easy to find even dim and obscure objects by working our way from an easy star to the object.