Kepler Q1 to Q16 do not give stable evidence for a pre-ingress brightening in KOI-2700

We test a fixed pre-ingress flux band for the known dusty transit of KOI-2700b in Kepler release 25. A reduction of 903 selected orbits gives an equal-quarter aperture contrast of 23.88 ppm, with a conditional 95 percent block interval of [0.89, 46.44] ppm. Corrected flux gives 29.48 ppm. Quadratic baselines, two alternate periods, and longer noise blocks give intervals that include zero. Q9 to Q16 give 10.31 ppm in aperture flux, with interval [-16.15, 35.76]. Only the first of four observing years has a separate interval above zero. An inserted 100-ppm Gaussian bump gives a 66.78-ppm band response. A specified extinction-only tail gives -1.73 ppm. These checks test the reduction, not the physical dust model. The evidence does not establish dust scattering, a new signal, or a new planet. Independent TESS work lacks the sensitivity needed for confirmation. The package includes code, derived measurements, input hashes, a figure and reproduction steps. Raw mission data remain external.

astronomy · KOI-2700 · Kepler · dust scattering · pre-ingress brightening · noise sensitivity · null discovery result