compass rose on screen

[F1Rocket]

What determines the diameter of the compass rose surrounding the aircraft icon?
What is the orange dot on the compass rose?
Is there a way to set the diameter of the compass rose to a distance ring.... say 5 miles?

 

[Cobra]

I believe the diameter of the compass rose is fixed at half the narrowest screen dimension.

The orange dot is the course you should fly to head direct to your currently-active waypoint.

You cannot change the diameter of the compass rose, but you can add fixed-distance rings to the view: Menu > Setup > Map Settings > Dist/Glide Rings, then select "Fixed". This will overlay concentric rings centered on your ownship that are sized to reasonably cover your current map view, and are marked at distances like 5, 10, 20, 50nm, etc.

Note that some have the opinion that the fixed rings do not contrast enough with Sectional base layers. If you share that opinion, you could cast your vote in favor of better colors here.