First direct measurement of $^{23}$Mg$(p,\gamma)^{24}$Al with DRAGON

During explosive nucleosynthesis, the $^{23}$Mg(p,$\gamma)^{24}$Al capture reaction may function as a breakout from the NeNa to the MgAl cycles. Depending on the resonance strength and energy, such a breakout could substantially affect the production of $^{26}$Al and $^{22}$Na which have been detected by orbital satellite. This important reaction was directly studied at astrophysically relevant energies ($E_{lab} \simeq 490$ keV/u) by the DRAGON collaboration during the summer and fall of 2008. However, due to limitations of the ISAC facility, the experiment was complicated by a $^{23}$Na contamination ranging from 2 to 5000 times more intense than the $^{23}$Mg component. To compensate, a new local time-of-flight system and a multi-segmented ion chamber were used for particle identification. This talk will present and discuss some details of the experiment and the results to date.