Among other projects, Carruthers's cameras were used to capture ultraviolet images of Halley's Comet and Comet Kohoutek. In 1991, he developed a camera that was used on the STS-39 Space Shuttle mission. He also continued his work on the polar auroras with an instrument called the Global Imaging Monitor of the Ionosphere, which launched in 1999 on the ARGOS (satellite).