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It varies from system to system, based on what the distributors call it and if you run a custom kernel or not, but the file will usually at least have vmlinuz as part of the name. This means it runs on its own virtual machine and is compressed.
Also, there will likely be a ramdisk image accompanying the kernel that will contain necessary drivers and configuration files for the kernel to be able to read and run what's on your hard disk.
Remember that the kernel file is an IMAGE, not an executable binary. That means its meant to basically be copied straight into memory unmodified and manipulated from there before execution. You, the user will not be able to modify it very easily. IF your goal is a custom kernel, then get the source code for the kernel, introduce your patches, do your configuration, and build it.
If your goal is in seeing what the kernel is "thinking" at any point in time, you'd be best looking at the contents of the /proc and /sys directories, which give you a peek into the innards of the systems current operation, as they are virtual filesystems that base themselves off of the current state of the kernel. You can also normally grab your current kernel's configuration by copying out /proc/config.gz and decompressing it. It will be a plaintext file you can read and write.
