[KnightOfWords]

Hardly fictional, it's a pretty accurate representation of what Jupiter actually looks like. The main reason for using this technique is because our turbulent atmosphere blurs any image. Taking a video allows only a small percentage of the clearest frames to be combined. A spacecraft doesn't have this problem. The technique is called lucky imaging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_imaging

Stacking improves signal-to-noise ratio but does not introduce details that aren't present. A stacked image can be more accurate than a single frame as camera artifacts are reduced.

[zodPod]

Really well said! Also, before reading your explanation, I was a little hazy on how the image stacking thing worked. Now I understand a lot better. It's like averaging to get all of the details to the forefront without the oddities!

[KnightOfWords]

Glad you found it useful. If you haven't come across him before, this guy takes some of the best planetary images: http://www.damianpeach.com/index.htm