It's a good thing the anomalists haven't yet fully appreciated the enormous amount of astronomical/planetary imagery available free of charge over the Web, otherwise we'd be bombarded with an enormous number of reports of sundry weirdnesses.

Still, as you probably are already aware, amateurs have several mechanisms with which they can funnel data to the pros for a closer look. Most of these involve observing programs suited to small backyard scopes where the amateurs can capitalize on their major assets: wide telescopic fields of view and plenty of free time. Today, when amateurs have access to apertures up to a meter, computer processing, exotic photographic techniques and sensitive CCDs, the possibilities are endless.

Most comets are still discovered the way they were in the 19th century,
by some guy squinting through the eyepiece of a fast telescope.

Until the advent of automated telescopes equipped with pattern recognition software, most extragalactic supernovae were discovered by visual observers. The Australian amateur, Rev. Robert O. Evans, a retired clergyman, has the record: over 40 SNs by 2005! Visual discovery is very important because it allows the big pro scopes to get crucial spectra before the brief expansion phase is over. A "Rev Ev" report can get major observatories all over the world to drop whatever they're doing and slew their scopes over for an early spectrogram of one of these distant explosions.

The premier example is the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO), which coordinates amateurs and provides them with finder charts, priorities and a uniform reporting format to allow them to routinely monitor variable stars, collate their observations, and make up light curves which can be forwarded to the professionals for analysis.

Other observers are organized by the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers (ALPO) to time occultations, eclipses, and appulses.
This data allows the professionals to refine solar system orbits and even to determine the sillouettes of asteroids.

Other amateurs do invaluable work documenting meteor showers.

There is plenty of precedent for this type of amateur-professional collaboration.