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"Another way to think of the "side" of the pier that your scope is on -- it's the side with the center of the saddle. That seems obvious, but if your scope is long and you are near the vertical with the counterweight shaft, the aperture or opposite end of the scope may be across the meridian (or the object you're pointing at is across the meridian.) The saddle is always clearly in one side or the other. This way, it doesn't matter what you are pointing at in the sky, you're always setting a limit or a model for the side that the center of the saddle is on, not what you're looking at."
Ryan Noonan