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Hi Jake,
It might be that you're expecting it to look different to what you will actually see. I was looking for it this evening and my initial problem was that I was going straight past it. It's nowhere near as obvious or striking as the Carina nebula that you have found. We might both need the filters that others have mentioned if we're to get the effect we're hoping to see?
I was using a very modest 80x400 refractor and then a 150x750 reflector so your bigger scope should be fine for at least nailing the right location.
I found it by star hopping from the Southern Cross. I started at the star named Acrux in the shot below taken from Stellarium. Depending on your time and location, the orientation of the Southern Cross might look different, but the five main stars in it are easy to pick, as you would know.
I started by centring on Acrux and then hopped across to the pair of bright stars, which have a red arrow pointing to them the picture. It's just a short hop in relation to the scale of the S. Cross.
After a short pause I then hopped a slightly longer distance in a similar direction and landed on Lamda Centauri which is the main bright deal in Chicken territory. There is small 'necklace' of stars below which is very faint in that shot but it was fairly obvious too.
What I didn't see was the sort of surrounding effect that is depicted in that shot, or such a vivid clustering as we both saw in the Carina nebula (which is to the upper far right in the shot). So I went right past a couple of times.
Good luck!
Cheers,
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