Loads of useful links and information in this thread :) When testing for IR senistivity the brighter the spot the better. If you can get a spot on a faster shutter even better, but try 2 or 3 secs first see what happens. I understand that some cameras have filters on the sensor that block IR light.

And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Edward Lear
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html