[Ephil012]

Oh yeah, forgot but to clarify you might be able to get something better than a smartphone camera with the right sensors and clever space saving in a 1U cubesat. It's just most of the 1Us I have seen don't use anything beyond smartphone level cameras due to their internals (e.g. reaction wheels, computer system, etc) taking up too much space and the fact they don't need something more advanced. Though if you were very clever about laying out the space and removing as many components as possible you could fit a small zoom lens in there and get something better quality. I suspect though there are people who have done this. I just don't think it would be anything super different from existing images taken from the ISS or other things in orbit. If you went for something bigger then maybe you could get something more substantial and get cool images of planets in our solar system close up. A 24 U might be able to pack quite a camera system, but as far as I know the general max size is 12U and anything past that is rare/theoretical. I know though at even a 2U you can get some pretty high quality images of Earth, but I don't know if that would really translate to anything super amazing of space given the distance most planets/stars are. I think those images would still look like they were taken with a high quality smartphone or maybe a dslr camera just due to the fact they are far out (even though technically 2Us pack way better camera systems than most smart phones).

As a whole though these camera system are mostly used for Earth as it's an easier target. Space images are more like astrophotography grade and not Hubble grade.

If you want an example of a good cubesat camera here are some. https://dragonflyaerospace.com/products/ I should note though that these would not generally fit inside a 1U given their smallest one takes up 1U worth of space.