If I'm looking at that second one correctly, you're probably remembering more color in the light areas. Bringing up the darkness for detail washes out the light. I've spent many hours on pics like that trying to make it look like what I saw.
About all you can do is use two copies of the image and some masking to incorporate the right parts from each. Fairly difficult to do smoothly.
Amazing how the brain does stuff that the camera, film, screen, sensor, paper, etc. can't even try to do.
A very nice picture, and my favorite of those posted.