What was this in the sky last night?

My friend sent me the first photo. Taken at 11:40pm, looking north-west from Upper Hutt above the hills. It wasn’t the moon apparently.

Quote from friend: “It caught my attention because it looked like there were floodlights behind the hill. It was there for the entire 20 mins I was outside. It was more vividly bright in real life.”

The second photo I took on 23 Jan at 9:40pm also looking north-west across the hills of Upper Hutt. What I saw was less vivid and was barely visible to the naked eye but very obvious on my camera. It looked like the northern lights I’ve seen in Finland - slowly dancing across the sky and moving around.

I don’t know if they’re related but they’re both looking across to Paekākāriki.