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The nebula in the Tarantula is not faint, and it should show up quite well in your 12". I see it as a sprawling mass of cloud with loops that seem to spawn out from the centre.
At around 100x in my scope (19mm Pan) the nebula fills a significant amount of the field of view. Your 15mm Plossl with give around the same power in your scope, and the nebula would have filled most of the field.
The Tarantula nebula usually shows itself in Binoculars as smudgy blob being at one end of, and slightly away from, the central bar feature of the LMC. It should be visible in your finder (it is in my 6x30 in Brissie suburbs)
There are many numerous clumps of gas and dust that are easily reachable with a 12" and some of those do look like candidates for the Tarantula, but the Tarantula is the king of nebulas in that part of the sky
If what I have described is what you saw, then you can tick it off your list, otherwise keep hunting.
Andrew
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