Centro de Interpretación Astronómica - Planetario Buenaventura Suárez

The Buenaventura Suárez Astronomical Interpretation Center - Planetarium is Paraguay's only public planetarium and astronomical observatory. It was inaugurated on March 24, 2010, next to the Jesuit Mission of San Cosme y Damián, in the south of Itapúa department. It is named after Jesuit priest Buenaventura Suárez, who settled at the reduction — tourism sources place his arrival in 1703, while other sources say 1706 — and, with the collaboration of the Guaraní people, built astronomical observation instruments and wrote the "Lunario de un siglo" (Century Lunar Calendar), a work of more than 200 pages predicting eclipses between 1740 and 1840 that impressed European scientists of the time.

Suárez is popularly remembered as the first astronomer of the southern hemisphere, though historians qualify this claim: he was, in any case, one of the earliest and most significant astronomers in the region, without necessarily being the very first in the hemisphere in absolute terms.

The center blends science and Guaraní culture in a tour that includes a multimedia projection room on Guaraní astronomy, a gnomon for measuring solstices and equinoxes, a galactic slide, an armillary sphere, a scale model of the solar system, and solar and night telescopes for daytime and nighttime sky observation. Sitting alongside one of the country's best-preserved Jesuit mission complexes, it is a must-see stop for anyone touring the Itapúa Jesuit Route.