These effects, if not properly accounted for, lead to erroneous values of meteor shower activity. High quality photographic data, as well as naked-eye observations, are analyzed. We explain this difference on the basis of a larger path of the meteoroids at increasing entry angles, which increases the probability of perception of meteors for visual observers. These values are compared to predictions resulting from a detailed treatment of the single body theory. It turns out that the single body approach gives a much stronger dependence of the meteor brightness on the entry angle than that obtained from observations.
Models including quasicontinuous fragmentation are therefore necessary.