Amateurs just look at the whole complex and say nothing. Map Printable Map More info. This nebula surrounds Iota ORI, the end star on the sword of Orion. If you are like me, the first time you looked at NGC 1980, you didn't know that you were looking at an object that has a separate designation from the Great Orion Nebula. Image from the Digital Sky Survey with a considerable amount of logarithmic scaling.
Smaller aperture shows a fairly even, gray disk.
The surrounding nebulosity is very large and shows up faintly with the OIII filter. Image from the Digital Sky Survey.