Todd, impressive photos! Have several questions and observations.
1. Any chance of your taking the original photo and simply changing the dark level and posting that?
2. I do some wide-field astrophotography with digital cameras and, if I over-expose in post-processing, I end up with lots of background noise masquerading as stars! What I'm seeing in several of the photos reminds me of that.
3. I've found it incredibly helpful to compare the “stars” showing up in my photos with the actual ones in astronomy apps, such as Sky Safari. In such sky charting, planetarium apps, you can set the faintest (lowest) star magnitude and then match what's shown against your photos, identifying stars and star patterns, and determining what's real and what are artifacts.
Doing that helps determine how much the images are over-processed — inducing stellar artifacts — and how much that needs to be dialed back. Have you tried doing that?
4. I've been tempted to get an iPhone with night mode, but only if I can figure out, in advance, how much better the images would be. So, I’d be interested in learning how faint the stars are that you're actually capturing.
5. Clearly, dark skies matter. What's the limiting magnitude for the unaided eye where you took the photos?
6. I'd also be curious what the Milky Way — and Andromeda Galaxy — look like from your home taken by the iPhone on a simple tripod. Any chance of posting a photo or two from there? Of course, we'd need to know what its LM is, too.
In any case, keep up the good work — and know that you have a receptive audience!