[dragnet2]

Dedicated amateurs using commercial telescopes made this discovery because, in part, professional telescopes usually investigate angularly small patches of the night sky, whereas these arcs span several times the angular size of the full moon

They need to make a public excuse as to why amateurs discovered this first?

It seems the professionals with "professional telescopes" couldn't see the forest from the trees.

And I'm still not sure what a professional telescope is.

[telescope115]

I may be wrong, but what I think that means is amateurs who use their professionally made scopes to take photos of huge areas of the sky will have pictures similar to this, although I can’t recall seeing one processed to look like that.
Professional astronomers, using their “monster-sized” observatory scopes will take photos of extremely small areas of the sky, but with much more magnification.