  The Cherenkov light produced in air showers largely contributes to the signal
observed in ground-based gamma-ray and cosmic-ray observatories. Yet, no
description of this phenomenon is available covering both regions of small and
large angles to the shower axis. To fill this gap, a parametrization of the
angular distribution of Cherenkov photons is performed in terms of a
physically-motivated parametric function. Model parameters are constrained
using simulated gamma-ray and proton showers with energies in the TeV to EeV
region. As a result, a new parametrization is obtained that improves the
precision of previous works. Results presented here can be used in the
reconstruction of showers with imaging Cherenkov telescopes as well as in the
reconstruction of shower profiles with fluorescence detectors.
