I may be mistaken but there's even atmosphere visible - that tiny translucent band on the darker photo

It almost looks like the Earth has a subtle glow around it

I wish I could see a pic from today with the aurora. I was surprised to see the aurora in northern Europe a couple hours ago, it is very active right now.

I like the non brightened version, where you can clearly see the light coming from cities. How cool would it be if we saw similar on another planet...