Van der Hucht, son of teacher Jan van der Hucht (1905) and Jannigje Verhoek (1913), studied (1964–1972) and obtained his PhD (1978) at Utrecht University, and held a postdoc position at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in Boulder, Colorado, USA (1978–1979).

This was the fourth time that this task fell to a Dutch astronomer, after Jan Hendrik Oort (1935–1940, 1946–1948), Pieter Oosterhoff (1951–1958) and Kees de Jager (1967–1973).

Van der Hucht was appointed Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau on Friday 26 April 2013 in Doorn.

The archive documents concern a group of Dutch East Indies families and their tea companies, now known as the Heren van de Thee, after the book by Hella S. Haasse.

Van der Hucht has also assembled an image archive of approximately twelve hundred photos and dozens of films.