capture it from go to whoa in H-alpha
and white light.What has been your proudest moment?
I do love solar imaging; the Sun is
never boring. In 2014 I got lucky; the
seeing steadied and gave me a moment
I will never forget — white light solar
granulation detail around a very large
sunspot. That gave me a nice certificate
from the David Malin Awards in 2014.
I also got another Malin award for a
time-lapse of the Venus transit in 2012.What’s on your astronomy ‘to do’ list?
I would love to witness an aurora and
chase down some more eclipses. I hope
to make the one going through Sydney
in 2028 and not be pushing up the
daisies for the 2037 one near the Gold
Coast. I love the Queensland Astrofest
and hope I can add to my list of fests for
many more years; I am 10-plus at the
moment and very much addicted.■ You can see David’s Venus transit
video at youtu.be/-uOo_bK7LoMDavid Hough
A
childhood fascination with the
stars has led to a lifelong interest
for David Hough, or Houghy as
he is known. His father gave him pair of
binoculars, and a “cool” physics teacher
made science worthwhile. And then in
his late-teens he saw Saturn through a
homemade 20-cm Dob. “That blew me
away and I wanted more,” he says.
What was your first telescope set-up?
My first real telescope was a white
80-mm Tasco refractor that I bought
second-hand when I was 21. It had
a timber tripod and a very wobbly
equatorial manual mount. The 0.96
eyepieces gave wondrous but fleeting
glimpses of Saturn, Jupiter and the
Moon, because I couldn’t set it up to
save my life.
What sort of equipment do you use
now, and why?
I consider astronomy to be like golf...
you just need the right club to catch
those photons. Currently I have a couple
of different refractors, a 20-cm SCT,
60-mm solar telescope, FLI and ASI
cameras, and my pride of place Celestron
11 RASA telescope. My Sky-Watcher EQ8
mount works well as the travel mount
for the Queensland Astrofest. And then
there is the ‘doghouse,’ a 2.3m dome.
X Solar imaging is one of David’s passions —
“the Sun is never boring”.
Houghy with the
Celestron RASA in his
‘doghouse’ dome.What has been your favourite
astronomical moment?
The total solar eclipse near Cairns was
mesmerising, but chasing down clear
skies for the transit of Venus for the
second time was my best moment.
Mike Sidonio and I travelled to sunny
Nyngan where, from the backyard of
a 100-year-old pub, we managed toIN PROFILEhttp://www.skyandtelescope.com.au 75