Sure thing – think of it like this: first pick a lens with the widest f/ value you can find; the larger the aperture, the more photons you get, which beats the sky background. Then go to a cooled CCD or CMOS that keeps dark current down – the cooler is essential if you’re staring at the night sky. Next, let the shutter stay open long enough that you hit the read‑noise floor, but not so long that the Earth’s limb or cosmic rays start to dominate. That usually means several minutes per exposure on orbit, and then stack thousands of those frames to push the signal‑to‑noise up. Don’t forget a high‑quality, low‑scatter coating on the lens elements – it cuts down stray light and keeps your contrast sharp. Finally, tweak the exposure times per filter so you’re never hitting saturation on bright stars while still getting faint nebulae. That’s the recipe to go from a fox‑hunter’s sunrise lens to an orbiting sky‑photographer’s dream.

Absolutely, ISS windows give a fixed optical path, but you still have to deal with the micrometeoroid‑induced vibrations. I’d design a miniature cryo‑loop that keeps the sensor within ±0.1 °C, and pair it with a low‑noise back‑illuminated CMOS. Then use a motorized focus that adjusts every few hours based on a reference star field—keeps the PSF stable. The rest is just long‑term stacking; that’s where the real magic happens.