I was just looking at Pepper's pictures again, along with those posted by Jason. You know what? I think Pepper had his dew strip mounted exactly right in the very first picture!

I believe what many of us thought was the back of the rear cell was actually the convex, ribbed, dust cover mounted on the front of the OTA. In that first pic above, it really looks like a rear cell with the picture cut off at the bottom just above where the SCT threads would be. The fact that this end of the scope is pointed down also adds to the impression that we're looking at the rear of OTA. This is obviously not the case, though, since the bracket is on the left side of the OTA as viewed from the rear of the scope.

I'd hereby like to withdraw everything I previously wrote in this thread and simply say, "Nicely done Pepper."

(but you still shouldn't even think about cutting that mounting bracket!)

-Harry