Problem with opacity in IE8

Answer 1

IE8 doesn't support the CSS attribute opacity you have to use an MS filter instead:

    opacity: "0",
    filter: alpha(opacity = 50); /*change value to suit your needs*/

That's not all though. This only works when the element is positioned, thankfully you have that already so it will work. For future reference if you don't have any position set, you can add zoom: 1 to the selector and it will work in IE :)