We report the results of our systematic survey for Galactic 6.7 GHz Class II CH 3 OH maser emission toward a sample of young stellar objects. The survey was conducted with the Shanghai Tianma Radio Telescope (TMRT). The sample consists of 3348 sources selected from the all-sky Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) point source catalog. We have discussed the selection criteria in detail and the detection results of those at high Galactic latitudes (i.e. |b| > 2 • ) in a previous paper (paper I). Here, we present the results from the survey of those at low Galactic latitudes, i.e. |b| < 2 • . Of 1875 selected WISE point sources, 291 positions that were actually associated with 224 sources were detected with CH 3 OH maser emission. Among them, 32 are newly detected. Majority of the newly detected sources are associated with bright WISE sources. The majority of the detected sources (209/224 = 93.3%) are quite close to the Galactic Plane (|b| < 1 • ) and lie on the inner spiral arms with positive LSR velocities. Detection rate and the color-color distribution of our detection are all matched with our anticipation. Combining with detections from previous surveys, we compile a catalogue of 1085 sources with 6.7 GHz CH 3 OH maser emission in our Galaxy.

We have used the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) to search for emission from the 4 −1 → 3 0 E transition of methanol (36.2 GHz) towards the center of the nearby starburst galaxy NGC 253. Two regions of emission were detected, offset from the nucleus along the same position angle as the inner spiral arms. The emission is largely unresolved on a scale of 5 ′′ , has a full-width half maximum (FWHM) line width of < 30 km s −1 , and an isotropic luminosity orders of magnitude larger than that observed in any Galactic star formation regions. These characteristics suggest that the 36.2 GHz methanol emission is most likely a maser, although observations with higher angular and spectral resolution are required to confirm this. If it is a maser this represents the first detection of a class I methanol maser outside the Milky Way. The 36.2 GHz methanol emission in NGC 253 has more than an order of magnitude higher isotropic luminosity than the widespread emission recently detected towards the center of the Milky Way. If emission from this transition scales with nuclear star formation rate then it may be detectable in the central regions of many starburst galaxies. Detection of methanol emission in ultra-luminous infra-red galaxies (ULIRGs) would open up a new tool for testing for variations in fundamental constants (in particular the proton-to-electron mass ratio) on cosmological scales.