It was based on 16 meteors acquired from both American and Russian sources. Nevertheless, one cannot ignore the fact that photographic and radar studies tend to indicate distinctly different orbital inclination averages. Thus, it would seem that the fainter and smaller radar meteors tend to possess more lower inclination orbits than the brighter, larger photographic meteors. Meteor showers visible to the naked eye will probably originate from the photographic radiant, while telescopic meteors will tend to lean toward the radar radiant. Based on the number of meteors detected both by photographic and radio-echo techniques, it would seem the Monocerotid shower may be stronger telescopically than visually.
Typical observations indicate hourly rates of only one to two per hour.
Surprisingly, the December Monocerotids may be responsible for the solving of a major puzzle in meteor astronomy. Perturbations from Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were taken into account. It was based on 30 radio meteors. It was calculated by Asklof in 1932, and is based on 170 observations. With a period of 145 years, it has an uncertainty of 0.6 year.