  Herein we show that non-resonant inelastic x-ray scattering involving an $s$
core level is a powerful spectroscopic method to characterize the excited
states of transition metal compounds. The spherical charge distribution of the
$s$ core hole allows the orientational dependence of the intensities of the
various spectral features to produce a spatial charge image of the associated
multiplet states in a straightforward manner, thereby facilitating the
identification of their orbital character. In addition, the $s$ core hole does
not add an extra orbital angular momentum component to the multiplet structure
so that the well-established Sugano-Tanabe-Kamimura diagrams can be used for
the analysis of the spectra. For $\alpha$-MnS we observe the spherical charge
density corresponding to its high spin $3d^5$ ($^6A_1$) ground state
configuration and we were able to selectively image its excited states and
identify them as $t_{2g}$ ($^5T_2$) and $e_g$ ($^5E$) with an energy splitting
$10Dq$ of 0.78\,eV.
